


The Angel and the Guardian

by mellichor (ghostofcepheus)



Series: fantasy series [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fictional Religion & Theology, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, M/M, Magic, Multi, Slow Burn, Spirits, Tales of Symphonia AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-05-11 16:12:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5632933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostofcepheus/pseuds/mellichor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His eyes are bland and brown, but he has a halo of sunshine hair. He’s too pale—as if he has been caged away from the outside world for all of his life— with skin of a bleached beast’s hide greatly contrasting Kuroo’s dark, sun-kissed skin, but it only deepens Kuroo’s desire to know him, to protect him. He’s beautiful, the black-haired boy repeats in his head, and he sees why everyone throws their faith at him. Tsukishima Kei is the embodiment of hope and renewal to the withering world they live in, and Kuroo wants to protect that hope.</p><p>Kuroo Tetsurou becomes Tsukishima Kei’s guardian knight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. when they were children

**Author's Note:**

> Pairing: Kuroo Tetsurou & Tsukishima Kei
> 
> prompt: fantasy/ magic/ tales of symphonia au
> 
> it’s this amazing fantasy video game that gave the inspiration to do this. this was really fun to write, and i’m really excited to see what more I can write out of this au. this does have some tales of symphonia spoilers (not too much) , so if you are planning to play the game or currently are, be careful.
> 
> i also wrote the first few beginning chapters as snippets or different memories of their childhood that play a significance later in their lives.

 

_month of undine, 2, XX36_

 

By the time Kuroo turned five, he could recite every fable he had ever heard of about angels with wings that stretched as far as the mountains, spirits made of entirely of ice,and monsters with eyes that could turn one into stone. His father rocked him in his lap during cold winter nights, watching Kuroo’s eyes go wide from amazement when he imagined Efreet, a spirit with a body so hot that the beast had to be chained underground to prevent the world from burning.When Kuroo was six, he would stretch his arms out as he ran out into the fields, imagining himself as Sylph, the spirit that could fly and fly over the world for weeks without ever taking a break.

 

 He walks to the small wooden school building with Hinata, and gasps in awe when he hears the whispers coming from a group of old ladies gathered in the corner. They are whispering timidly that there will be another angel going on a journey to join the goddess up above. They whisper that there will be another Chosen— another chance for the spirits to be free once again; another chance to receive blessing from the goddess; another chance to regenerate the dying, poverty-wrecked world they live in now—, and that hero will be selected soon.

 

 _Heroic, charming, strong._ When Kuroo gets to school each day and sits on the wooden bench next to his orange-haired friend, rumors about the new Chosen is all they could hear. He couldn’t bother to focus on what was going on in class at all; all he could do is wonder and daydream until Hinata would pinch his elbows to pay attention before Sugawara would catch him not focusing.

 

So when the end of the week comes with Hinata banging on his door for him to wake up, Kuroo, not bothering to change, flies out of bed in his pajamas and runs all the way down to the village square, crowded and chaotic and filled with praises and cheers. He climbs onto the crates by the store before pulling Hinata up. He hears the sharp intake of Hinata’s breath and his excited squeak _,”I think it’s the person in the white clothes!”,_ and they hold in their breath as they watch the ceremony together.

 

A thin, pale child—no taller than them— steps into the center of the crowd in a black, oversized robe and is declared the Chosen, and the entire crowd erupts into a fit of praises and prayers. Men and women who are four times the size of this child bow and throw their pleas at the blonde child, begging for their farmland’s soil to be restored to how it was before the land started dying and for their child to be rescued from the human ranch.

 

 Kuroo stares and stares, but it doesn’t make sense. Instantly, a child has become the world’s last hope. A child who looks his age is expected to carry the burden of the world’s survival and everyone’s expectations on the thin frame of his shoulders. Tsukishima Kei— his name is chanted over and over again in the cacophony of cries and chants— looks swallowed in grand clothes and cheers not meant for him.

 

Despite how disappointed Kuroo feels—when he looks back, he feels a little silly for expecting a half-lion, half-human who could rip the ground apart with bare hands—, he rests his chin on his arms,. He can’t help but feel in awe.. Not because of how much power has been handed over to a child just his age, but because of…

 

Because of how beautiful the boy is.

 

His eyes are bland and brown, but he has a crown of sunshine hair. He’s too pale—as if he has been caged away from the outside world for all of his life— with skin of a bleached beast’s hide greatly contrasting Kuroo’s dark, sun-kissed skin, but it only deepens Kuroo’s desire to know him, to protect him. _He’s beautiful,_ the black-haired boy repeats in his head, and he sees why everyone throws their faith at him. The blonde Chosen One is the embodiment of hope and renewal to the withering world they live in, and Kuroo wants to protect that hope.

 

(he goes home and begs his father to teach him how to fight.)

* * *

 

_month of celsius, 5, XX37_

 

Tsukishima Kei has only seen the outside world once.

 

 _Twice_ , now that he thinks about it, wiping the thick layer of sweat away from his forehead. Today is the second time out of his whole six years of life that he has stepped outside from the dark temple that the priests cage him in. It’s the second time he has ever seen colors so vivid, so bright and rich in hues and shades that it hurts his eyes, but it’s also the first time he is allowed to sink his eyes into the landscape and savor everything he sees. He’s accompanied by a gray-haired young man whose name he isn’t quite sure of—Sugawara, he thinks, the schoolhouse’s only teacher—, and his neck aches from how much he is straining to take everything in.

 

He feels like a toddler again; his ears, too use to the silence and solitude, hurt from the rough clattering of  the merchant’s carts. Tsukishima wants to stretch his hands on the ground—it’s the first time he has ever seen grass and the color green, and he’s bewildered at how rich in color it is—, and most of all, he wants to be near the children who are his age. When he is sent to his room after his lessons and the light of day allows him to see the children running and hiding outside of his window, he feels an ache of loneliness in his heart.

 

Now the opportunity is right in front of him, he’s paralyzed from shyness, to be honest; the only people he has ever conversed with were old men and women in charge of taking care of him and the temple. Tsukishima Kei has never had a single conversation that wasn’t one where he had to hold his head down, back straight, and voice blank; in fact, more than anything else in the world, he only wants to have a friend who can see him for more than what he is.

 

When the gray-haired man turns around to chat with a mother carrying a child at her hip, Tsukishima takes the chance and sneaks away to the two boys he sees some distance away sitting under the shade of the trees. He keeps a little bit of distance; his tongue is heavy to move, and he has no idea what to say. His brainstorming stops when he listens in to their conversation.

 

“Hinata, I don’t think it’s gonna happen.”

 

“Shhh! Just watch, will you?” The black-haired boy rolls his eyes before leaning closer to stare at the redhead’s hands. The bright-eyed boy holds his breath and squeezes his eyes shuts, and he holds that pose for so long Tsukishima could see his face turning blue. He stumbles forward, but a tiny, flickering flame appears on the tips of the redhead’s fingers and garners a gasp from the other boy.

 

“Holy cow, you weren’t lying!”

 

The tiny flame is gentle; the size akin to the candle Tsukishima lights in his room at night in order to read. The flame hops from one finger to another, dims and then flickers a bit brighter, and leaves the orange-haired boy breathless and in triumph of dazzling his friend.

 

“You know,” Tsukishima finds himself speaking up and butting his nose in, “you’ll burn off your skin if you keep on doing that.” The redhead whips his head in surprise and looks baffled for a moment before squeaking out angrily.

 

“No I won’t!”

 

“Yes,” Tsukishima emphasizes once more, before leaning over the boy’s shoulder, “Look at the smoke coming from your fingertips.”

 

“Oh.” The redhead’s eyes widens at the thin spiral of smoke rising. “ _Ohhh,_ no, oh no, it’s not going away!” He waves his hands back and forth quickly and starts to stand in panic when the flame only grows bigger and bigger.

 

The black-haired boy begins to panick too, staggering a bit back when he sees the flame viciously jump from one hand to the next. “Hold on Hinata, I’ll go get water from the blacksmith!”

 

Growing up around stiff-faced, composed elderly priests for the entirety of his childhood life, Tsukishima has no idea how to cope with the panic radiating off of the two boys, so he does the first thing that comes to his mind and jerks the boy back down.

 

“If you move too much, it’ll get worse!” The blonde Chosen snaps and pins the redhead’s arms down. He regrets his tone of voice when he hears a whimper escaping from Hinata’s lips.

 

“Look—Hinata, was it?—you’ll be fine. Your friend is already charging down the hill with a bucket full of water.” He consoles him in a lower tone, and when the friend sets the bucket down on the ground, Tsukishima gently places Hinata’s hands in the water. He hears the sizzle of the fire going away and the heaving pants from the other boy, and he continues comforting—although rather awkwardly, he has never experienced the action of comfort before in his life—the sniffling orange-haired boy.

 

After a minute passes, Tsukishima gingerly prys Hinata’s hands from the bucket and sets them down on his lap so he can examine the blackened patches of skin. He sees the orange-haired boy bite his lip to stop the cries slipping out of his mouth, and he brainstorms of anything he could do to stop the boy from crying again.

 

“Hey, don’t cry. Want to see a cool trick? Watch.” Tsukishima’s stomach eases when he reclaims the attention of the two boys.

 

A small translucent fairy, radiating sparks of rich green and cool to the skin, appears onto his palms and hops onto Hinata’s palms. She spins and spins—spinning everyone else’s heads just trying to watch her— and leaves a trail of green sparkles before kissing the burns on Hinata’s hands and poofs away, leaving a chilly breeze and astonished, speechless boys in her wake.

 

In reality, it’s a simple spell that only took Tsukishima two days to have it down. He’s grown up in a temple that is filled with pasty, wrinkled monotonous priests and elders with upheld, grim faces that preach and ground what a “dignified Chosen must and must not do” during the day; but when the evening light hits the tinted temple glass and they all leave and lock the gates, Tsukishima is left to be lost in the library too vast, in the hallways too empty, and in his room too lonely.

 

He learns how to read early with the help of the candles he sneaks from the prayer room. The feel of the aged paper against the ridges of his thumb, the felt and leather binding, and the dust that filters up from the pages were Kei’s only comfort. On nights where windstorms howled through the corridor and were so vicious even his room creaked and shuddered, he hid under his blankets and imagined a place he read in his books, far, far away from the dark hole of a temple he’s stuck in: a place with wyverns that would let one pat their bellies if fed berries, one with the grass blue and the sky green, a sanctuary of endless plains of snow so white and pure, he could see his reflection in.

 

So when he is able to first learn how to use mana—the energy from the stall temple air and dirt ground that flows out of his hands—, he spends times twisting his fingers and weaving ruby threads made of mana making shapes that added bursts of color to his room before fading away and leaving the sad, ugly temple walls once more. Tsukishima stays up that entire night, and soon enough the shapes he made grew into fireflies that tickled his nose, and eventually the tiny bugs became translucent fairies that gave him company as he read, played hide and seek with him, and covered him with his blankets every night before he slept.

 

Tsukishima blinked and looked up at the gawking boys, and suddenly he felt very self-conscious and stiff once more.

 

“You,” the black-haired boy finally speaks up, “gotta teach us how you do that.”

 

“That was _so_ cool! Did that take you long to learn? What book did you learn that from?” Hinata leans forward and grabs his hands, his eyes energetic.

 

“I﹘,” Tsukishima tries swallowing down the lump forming in his throat. He feels overwhelmed, but the feelings forming in his stomach doesn't make him nauseated or initmidated. He feels overhwhelmed by the two bursts of energy right in front of him, exploding, sizzling, washing over him. He feels overwhelmed by the two attentive eyes that stare at him as if he isn't a holy deity, a prop elevated to the role of a religious figure.  

 

The black-haired boy had been staring at him for awhile and seem to notice how choked up and overwhelmed Tsukishima became, and he gently pulled his friend back. “Hinata, you are grabbing his hands too tight, you’re scaring him!”

 

“Oh, shoot! Sorry about that! I’m Hinata Shoyou by the way, and he’s Kuroo.” The redhead gestures towards to the dark-haired boy that gave a grin that showed his two missing teeth and made Tsukishima blink and push up his glasses. Hinata continues,“What’s your name?”

 

Tsukishima finds his tongue lighter than before. “I’m Tsukishima. Please call me Kei.”

 

(when he returns to the temple that night, he can’t help but stay up thinking about his new friends.)

 

* * *

 

_month of efreet, 4, XX38_

 

It is a late afternoon and Tsukishima sweeps the altar and the sanctuary, humming under his breath as he does his chore. The temple is empty except for him; the priests had decided to wrap up his lessons early for today and left him to clean the temple. He despises being left with busywork, but he doesn’t complain because they at least had the decency to leave him alone for today.

 

When he sets the broom aside, Tsukishima catches sight  of the peach rays of the sunset, the golden crown of the autumn trees, and the dark green overgrown grass through the windows. It’s been a week since he was last allowed outside, and he wonders the next time he’ll be allowed to leave. He longs for scratchy green grass under his feet, white aprons of shopkeepers rustling past him, and the smell of cinnamon bread from the bakery. He thinks about the feeling of having no pressure on his shoulders, no thought of approval or disapproval from the clergy heavy on his head, and the tinkling laughter ringing in his ears; he misses it as if it is a warm, radiating hand that he wants to link his fingers with.

 

He goes up the stairs missing the color of black and orange the most.

 

Tsukishima sits on his bed and stretches out his arms and legs before lying on the wooden sill of the window.He closes his eyes for a few minutes before he hears something hitting against his window. He stays still, wondering if he was just mistaking the sound for the crickets or for something else, but when the same thump sounds through his room, he crawls forward to the window.

 

When Tsukishima sees two boys—Hinata and Kuroo he realizes after quickly putting on his glassess—climbing onto the tree near his window, he has to rub his eyes before quickly opening the window.

 

“Kuroo, you’re making too much noise! What if we get caught?” Hinata nervously calls from the bushes,  standing with his hand filled with pebbles.

 

“Don’t worry I got this! I’m as slick as a ca﹘ouch!” Tsukishima stifles a laugh as he sees Kuroo slip a little bit down on the tree trunk and scrape his knee.

 

“How do you even know that this is his room?”

 

“Well, the princesses in the stories are always in the highest room so﹘”

“I didn’t know I was a princess.” Tsukishima calls out, leaning over the side of the window. Kuroo sees the amused twinkle in the blonde’s eyes, and he turns a hot red.

 

“Kei! I’m so happy to see you!” Hinata merrily exclaims and waves his arm energetically. He drops the pebbles in his hands and picks up the checkered-patterned sacks on the ground.

 

“Ergh﹘see Shouyou, told you he was in this room!” Kuroo pulls himself up to a branch and triumphantly beams down at the redhead.

 

Tsukishima feels his cheeks flushing. Nobody has ever been so excited to see him before until now. “Well, your hunch was right,” he admits. “But what in the world are you two doing here?”

 

“Come down!” Kuroo grins, still hanging onto the tree branch. “We want to show you someplace cool!”

 

“Outside?” Tsukishima calls out, his stomach twisting into knots. “I’m not really allowed to leave…”

The priests would throw a fit if he even stepped outside into the gardens; ‘ _the outside world is unsafe and not meant for a young Chosen whose life has too much value to waste,’_ Tsukishima remembers bitterly.

 

“Come on, you’ll only be out with us for an hour or two! Besides, when was the last time you got to relax?” Kuroo pipes up, and Tsukishima pauses. There isn’t any harm in him going out, and as long as he gets back before dawn tomorrow, he should be fine.

 

“But,” he starts again, “the gate is locked. How can I go outside?”

 

“Why don’t you climb down?”

 

Tsukishima looks at the space the tree branch is from the window and then at the long drop down to the ground, and he immediately feels dizzy. “I’m...scared of heights,” he says feebly.

 

“Hold on,” Kuroo calls before continuing to climb up the tree. He grunts as he effortlessly pulls himself higher and higher.  It’s as if he has all the strength in the world to climb up to the red-hot setting sun and back before it slips away into the distance. He gets onto the final branch and scoots closer and closer to the window sill until Tsukishima is within arm’s reach.

 

“Are you fine getting onto my back? I can’t hold onto you when I’m climbing down, but we’ll be fine if you wrap around your arms around my neck and hold onto me tight.” The dark-haired boy holds out his hand for Kei—who seems more flustered than overwhelmed— and Tsukishima tentatively grabs his hand and wraps his arms around the boy’s back.

  
When they begin their slow crawl back down, Tsukishima has to squeeze his eyes shut to avoid feeling overwhelmingly queasy. At some point, Kuroo slips and grabs another branch underneath them in last minute, and Tsukishima catches a glimpse of the tree’s leaves above and the blood red streaks in the sky before screwing his eyes shut and tightening his grip until he and Kuroo reach the ground.

. . . . .

For a Chosen who is built up to be a person destined to embark on a journey to save the world, Tsukishima is embarrassingly incompetent, graceless, and pathetic in water. They wanted to teach him how to swim in a nearby pond off near the village’s forest— _tried_ to teach him, he corrects himself—; no matter how hard he flailed his arms, how they held him up, or, _for the love of Goddess Martel_ he cringes, how many inflatable ducks he was given, he sank like a rock. He lost his glasses at one point, and it took twenty minutes for Kuroo to wrestle his poor, thin glasses from a duck nest.

 

In fact, when he finally gives up and just wants to be taken back to sweet, solid land, Tsukishima clings onto Kuroo’s back until he dogpaddles them to the bank and spends a few minutes calming down the crying sunshine-haired boy, wiping away the tears and snot away from Tsukishima’s face. They stay near the shallow ends of the pond, playing with the mud and finding sparkling, silver stones. The early indigo evening light gradually shines over them, slowly pulling the boys out of the pond and drying their clothes near a campfire they set up.

 

Tsukishima rolls up his now-dried pants and dips his feet in the chilly water. Even with the light of daylight gone, he could see the silhouettes of tiny fish floating around, swimming with no regards to the three boys disturbing their pool. He sees a family of turtles crawling up on the bank, the imprint of their soft bellies left onto the mud, and eventually huddling together in their homes of their shells as they go off to sleep.

 

There’s two more ripples in the pool as Hinata sits next to him, his wild hair still dripping wet fand a grin plastered on his face. He doesn’t pay attention to how Tsukishima stiffens when he huddles to his side for heat—like how the fireflies hum over the campfire—but Tsukishima relaxes and appreciates the warmth Hinata brings and turns his attention to the orange-haired boy when he speaks.

 

“You know what makes the fireflies light up? It’s called lunacibufagens. They say every time the Spirit of Light Luna sneezes, these fireflies grab onto them and suck them in.” Tsukishima snorts as the redhead imitates the bugs by puckering up his lips. “But that isn’t true. The fireflies tend to lay their eggs near her tower, so they probably only get the chemicals from all the mana they are exposed to.”

 

“Isn’t Hinata smart? He’s the smartest one in the school.” Kuroo calls out and sits down next to Tsukishima, leaving some space between the two. “Haven’t you read like, fifty ‘jillion books, Shouyou?”

 

Hinata’s cheeks burn a deep red, and crosses his arms. “No,” he snaps, “and “jillion” isn’t a number, Tetsurou.”

 

The dark-haired boy gives a sheepish smile that showed his crooked tooth. “Either way,” he smiled at the blonde-haired boy, “ this kid is the smartest person in the village! People go to Hinata to ask him about everything! Don’t you even know how to read elven language?”

 

Tsukishima blinks at the redhead in surprise. “You do? I heard it is was lost milleniums ago.”

 

Hinata’s cheeks—red burning streaks that seemed to outdo the sun a few hours ago— flushed even darker, and he smooths the orange bangs over his ears with his finger tips. “Well,” he says absentmindedly, his voice tinged with embarrassment, “it’s not too hard to learn.”

 

“ You should teach me one day. It’d be interesting to compare elven to the angelic language the temple teaches. Is there a lot of books in the village?”

 

“There’s not much in the village, and the merchants that come through don’t carry a lot. I sort of wish there was more books I could get though .” The brown-freckled boy sighs and takes his feet out of the water.

 

“I could bring you some,” Tsukishima offers, and smiles when he sees Hinata’s eyes light up. “Besides, I think I read all of the ones in the temple by now, so you can take your time reading the ones I lend you.”

 

“Are you serious?! Man, you are the best! We should trade books every week! Is the library in the temple huge?” Hinata chirps and grabs onto Tsukishima’s arm, squeezing it in midst of his excitement.

 

Tsukishima scratches his head. The temple had always been relatively simple and modest with its wooden architect; the structure of the temple was vast, yet the sanctuary and library always stood out as the temple’s most elegant features to him.

 

“It’s decent, in my opinion. Originally, it always held Sylvarant’s sacred religious and historical texts, but there’s a man named Sugawara who comes every now and then and brings me books from the village.”

 

Kuroo’s head snaps up. “Oh, Suga? That’s Hinata’s brother! Why does he come to the temple?”

 

“He comes to teach me a few days a week once my temple lessons are done. Sugawara is also my guardian and meets with the other priests to discuss what I have to do when I am older.”

 

“Discuss? What do you mean, like what stuff?”

 

“Well, essentially they have every single day up until my 19th birthday planned out. ” Tsukishima adjusts his glasses—a habit he does when he is anxious and rambling on— and avoids the incredulous looks the two boys send to each other. In fact, the first ten years of his life were planned out to the detail—to the most miniscule detail, from his meals each day and his lessons— before he was even born. He doesn’t bother to add that, but continues on.

 

“They can’t have the Chosen messing up. you see. The last Chosen before me was killed on a human ranch for trying to release a friend of hers that they were experimenting on, and that was two decades ago. So that’s why it is very important to them to make sure I’m on the right path, so when I’m older I can embark on the journey to restore blessing to the world by becoming an angel.”  

 

There’s a long pause that falls on them, and Tsukishima listens to the deep croak of a frog before it splashes into the water. He turns his head when Kuroo lets out a long whistle.

 

“Well, damn. Don’t you ever wish you could make your own decisions for once? What you want to do, where you want to be, who you want to be friends with?” Kuroo asks, and Tsukishima doesn’t know how to answer and stays quiet for awhile.

 

“I don’t know. I guess it’s all worth it if it makes other people happy. I mean, being a Chosen doesn’t mean you live for yourself.” His tone is flat, but his response feels weak like how the earth beneath him suddenly feels. Kuroo sends him a hard look, and Tsukishima shifts his eyes away and feels some of the ground crumble away.

 

“I could ask my brother if he can find a way for you to go to school in the village with us.” Hinata speaks softly, barely louder than the crackle of the campfire. “There’s no point in you being cooped up in a dingy, old temple all the time, and you’ll still get an education, right Kei?”

 

He shrugs and tries not to think of how nice it would be to feel like how he is now all of the time. There’s a silence that falls onto the three boys and envelopes them like the indigo hue on the canvas of the sky. Tsukishima rubs the grass underneath him between his hand, staining the green mesh into his fingers to leave a fingerprint of the feelings that swirls in the pits of his stomach.

 

He feels the cooling touch of the pond water, bugs crawling in the mud, and the world revolving on its belly beneath his fingers, and he feels in love. He doesn’t say goodbye until it is well past the time he was suppose to be back, and when Kuroo helps him up into his room and whispers, “we’ll see you soon,” Tsukishima hangs onto his words as he falls into dreams of slow turtles, scratchy grass, a sunset-red faced half-elf, and a grinning black-haired boy.

 

(he hears talk the next day of letting him going to the village’s school a few times a week, and he is utterly ecstatic when head chief hesitantly grumbles a yes.)

 

* * *

  _month of luna, 17, XX42:_

 

Kuroo knows full well that Tsukishima Kei is very important and can’t always play with him and Hinata. He sometimes feels so antsy in the pits of his stomach at whether he is bothering him, whether he is too “low-class” to even be around him—he tries harder in school and puts more in the effort in learning his multiplication tables earning much suspicion and scrutiny from Hinata— or even...how he notices how lovely Kei’s face becomes as the weeks turn into months. But then, at the end of the day, he sees the small, sunny smile from the blonde boy that melts his anxieties into a puddle, and Kuroo is honored to be friends with someone so intelligent and kind.

 

There are moments, however, when Tsukishima doesn’t show up at school, and Kuroo doesn’t see him for periods even long as a few weeks. In mornings where he knocks on Hinata’s door so they can walk to school together, he asks Sugawara why wasn’t Tsukishima coming on some days and returns irregularly, but the silver-haired teenager shifts his eyes, pushes a plate of breakfast towards him, and instead tells him to eat quickly and open up the school before the other kids come.

 

One night as he was finishing up his homework with Hinata, Kuroo sees Sugawara slamming the front door returning from the temple. When he sees the quicks slips of tears before hiding his face ashamed, Kuroo learns to stop asking.

 

Instead, he tells his father that he’ll be an hour late back home every Tuesday night because he is “getting money for helping the merchants unload into the market”. He lacks the “book smarts” that Hinata has, but he knows which forest trails are safe during nighttime and which ones aren’t, what animals and plants are edible if one gets lost and is out of food, and he is the strongest boy in the village. With his father as Sylvarant’s finest swordsmith, Kuroo learned how to swing a sword around as early as he learned how to use a spoon to eat, and he holds pride in the skills that he has learned and the usefulness in them.

 

So before Kuroo carries and unload the merchants’ crates, Hinata hands him a book he spent all week gushing about how much he wants Tsukishima to read it, and he puts it gently in his bag so it doesn’t crumple the flowers he picked this morning.  He crosses through the forest every morning to get to the village and always passes by bushes and wildflowers, and he’d thought Kei would appreciate something that wasn’t wooden, dusty, and dreary inside the temple. He helps the merchants load their crates, prepare their horses, and directs them on the path to their next destination; he finishes it all by sunset with his pay safely sitting in his pocket. He makes sure all of the extra notes of paper Hinata added to the book weren’t bent and runs through the forest,long legs leaping over scraggly tree roots and puddles. Kuroo memorizes the path to the temple in two weeks and climbs the big oak tree by Tsukishima’s room in less than a minute—he doesn’t want to admit that he knows his way to Kei as well as well as he knows the back of his hand.

 

Kuroo peers through the window to see there is no light in the room— _“Must be asleep already,”_ he mutters to himself—, so he leaves the book in the crook of the window and hesitantly places a purple head of iris on top. He knocks on the window, waits a second, and slips down the tree and runs back home without looking back.

 

A few days later in the early light of dawn, Kuroo sees Tsukishima already at his desk, swinging his legs as he finishes scribbling words on a sheet of paper. The brown-eyed boy greets Kuroo warmly, and when Hinata rushes in to hug him, he gushes praise for the book the orange-haired boy lent him and how surprised he was to see it on his window. Kuroo’s chest tumbles a little when Tsukishima doesn’t mention to bring up the flower he left him, but then he reasons that maybe it flew away in the wind or it fell down.

 

They don’t talk about the swelling on the right side of his face or spots of purple and blue dusting his left cheek and arms. They don’t talk about how Tsukishima flinches whenever Kuroo taps him on the shoulder or whenever Hinata shakes his arm in excitement. They don’t talk about that although Tsukishima has his hand raised for a question nobody knows the answer to, Sugawara avoids calling on him and instead on someone else in the back.

 

Kuroo knows not to ask.

 

The week continues on as if everything was normal and that there is nothing hidden until Tsukishima doesn’t show up again the next week for three days in a row, and Kuroo sets out on another night with a different book and another iris flower. Tsukishima comes back the next day but with dark round bruise under his right cheek, bags under his eyes, and scratches coating his palms that made it difficult for Tsukishima to write. The cycle repeats and repeats to the point that Hinata doesn’t say much during lunch about the books he found and hands over another book to Kuroo with a tight-lipped grimace and concern etched in his eyes.

 

Kuroo knows better not to say anything and takes the books without a word, but Hinata doesn’t know better. The sky is thick with gray, growling clouds when they sit outside for lunch, and Hinata says, “Why won’t he tell us what’s going on?”

 

The raven-haired boy stays quiet and fiddles with the yellow lips of tulips he picked early this morning. The thunderstorm clouds growls in response, and Hinata shakes his head.

. . . . .

When Kuroo reaches the top of the oak tree, he sees the window already open. He hesitates before leaning forward to see the room dark and wonders if Tsukishima maybe forgot to shut the window before he went to bed. He shrugs and places the flowers and books in their standard position and turns to crawl down until a sharp “wait!” rings out.

 

Kuroo turns to see the blonde boy leaning dangerously over the window reaching for him. Kuroo stiffens up from the surprise, but he sees how ruffled Tsukishima’s star-colored hair is and his flustered face and hastily pushing his glasses up and Kuroo grins.

 

“You knew I’d be coming tonight?”

 

“Yeah.” The glasses wobble and dip down to the bridge of his nose as his voice wavers. Kuroo notices a bruise on Tsukishima’s forehead. “I wanted to see you and to also thank you for all the nice things you leave me, but I feel asleep waiting…”

 

Kuroo exhales and nods his head, and stands in the pool of thick silence and unsaid questions. He leans back on the window sill and is ready to bid his friend goodnight until Tsukishima speaks.

 

“Kuroo, do you know where the city of Asgard is?” Kuroo shakes his head and watches Tsukishima wearily sit down.

 

“No, do you?”

 

“No.”

 

Kuroo sees the edge of a map peeking out under a pile of books, but he knows better not to call Tsukishima out on his lie and instead sits patiently for the blonde to continue. He fidgets as if what he has bottled inside for so long found a crack and is quietly leaking out.

 

“They say it’s a city that rises so high over the neighboring mountains that you can eat a little bit of the clouds. When the Goddess was still alive, she use to dance on the ceremonial pedestal in the middle of the city and wake Sylph up from his bed made out of clouds; she knew he didn’t like humans, so that’s why he was always flying—to get away from everyone.”

 

Kuroo blinks at Tsukishima’s unexpected words.“Sylph is one of the Great Spirits. Doesn’t he control the wind? Why would he be afraid of a girl who at the time wasn’t even a goddess?”

There’s a breeze that flows into the room; Kuroo isn’t sure if it is the wind or the look on Tsukishima’s face that causes the goosebumps on his arm.

 

“Maybe to get away from anyone who would hurt him.” Tsukishima’s bland brown eyes bore in Kuroo’s. “What I’m wondering about is something else. Would you chase after Sylph like how she did? She bothered him so many times, and he wouldn’t even tell her the reason why he was running away. Wouldn’t you just give up?”

 

The raven-haired boy doesn’t respond, and Tsukishima feels anxiety from the silence swell and burst into his stomach. He picks at the frayed ends of the cotton bottoms he has had for too long; the threads pull apart and unravel like how his insides feel right now.

 

“I don’t know. I guess it depends.  Maybe Sylph just needs some time alone, or maybe it’s not her job to be friends with every single being here on this planet. But if he means a lot to Martel, then I don’t see a good reason for her to give up.” Kuroo pauses before looking up and staring directly into Tsukishima’s eyes. “I know if it was you running away, I wouldn’t hesitate chasing you across the world.”

 

There’s an odd flush of heat—hot enough to make Tsukishima think summer has returned— that settles on his cheeks. Tsukishima doesn’t look up until he feels a dip in the bed and a warm body press against his side.

 

He feels Kuroo poking his cheek as a nonverbal way of him to look at him, and when he looks up and see the dazzling, crooked smile Kuroo flashes at him, Tsukishima can’t help but think how Kuroo brings more color to his room than any flower or paint can.

 

“Hey, Kei, give me your hand.”

 

“Why?”

 

Kuroo holds out his hand and waits patiently for Tsukishima to place his ontop. He grins when the blonde boy complies, and he wraps his chubby, short pinky around Tsukishima’s bony pinky.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“Let’s make a promise. One day, you, me, and Shouyou are gonna go travel across Sylvarant and find Sylph ourselves so he can answer all of your questions.” He presses a tiny, quick kiss on top of their pinkies before releasing it.

 

“What if he doesn’t want to talk to us? We can’t outrun a wind spirit.”

 

Kuroo grins and flexes his arm in an attempt to show his barely-evident muscles. “You’ll tackle him, and I’ll beat him up for you! I’m not afraid of some feathered chump, I’ve probably eaten chicken bigger than him!”

 

Kuroo takes Tsukishima’s laughter as an approval.


	2. to become a guardian knight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kuroo wakes up to a Hinata’s wide-eyed, pale face at his door. He rubs his eyes twice and starts to complain how ungodly late it is for Hinata to be bothering him at this hour and what could it possibly be this important to disturb him from his sleep, but red-head only needs to shake his head and say the following words that gets Kuroo grabbing his father’s sword and sprinting into the forest.
> 
> “Tsukishima is going to die tonight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhh, thank you so much to everyone who left such wonderful comments! please continue leaving me feedback, i love hearing what you guys think! im happy people were asking me questions about whether this will completely align with symphonia, and it won't completely and will have some new stuff thrown in to make more sense to readers. the same goes with the characters used, the hq characters will have a mixture of personalities and traits.
> 
> i hope you all enjoy this chapter!

_month of shadow,30 XX42_

 

Iselia is a small village surrounded by thick forests and is inhabited by people who can list off the name of every person who lives in the village within thirty seconds. Whether it’s the fact the village is practically hidden from the rest of the continent due to the endless surrounding forests or there just isn’t enough visitors other than the weekly merchants to build anything extravagant, Iselia is a plain, wood-and-mud built plot of homes with nothing extraordinary—other than perhaps the temple—for it to show off.

 

But it’s occasions like this that makes Kuroo step back and truly appreciate the beauty the village can show every now and then.

 

Pink, delicate flowers were strung through with string and hung from roof to roof and provided a lovely ceiling when one walks through the streets. Kuroo waves to the baker down the street who had finished setting out endless trays of assorted, fresh breads and desserts, and the fragrance filled the streets. He himself had finished preparing the lanterns that will float upward after the ceremony tonight, as an traditional offering of warmth to the spirits and fairies that slept in the cold skies, and he watches mothers and fathers leave and place dishes on the long wooden tables outside.

 

The village is beautiful, and he can’t wait for Kei to crane his head to gape at makeshift sky of flowers and to lift a lantern Kuroo himself had hidden aside for the three of them. The blonde Chosen deserves a moment of happiness and he wants to be happy for his friend, but he feels his stomach sinking and finds himself squeezing his fists.

 

He walks over to Hinata’s house on the outskirts of the village, and he waits until the redhead leaves and shuts the door. Hinata spends a minute rubbing the head of his neighbor’s dog and takes out the treat he’s been saving before they move onto the bustling streets.

 

“How nervous do you think Kei is right now?”

 

“He didn’t seem too nervous when I went yesterday. Then again, he’s always really good at hiding how he feels.”

 

“Let’s stop by for a little bit, I’m sure he will appreciate our company before the ceremony starts tomorrow.” Kuroo nods his head in agreement and lets a wagon carrying foreign spices and silk pass in front of him.

 

For a tiny country village like Iselia, it feels alien to see the streets swell and crowd with individuals from towns and cities Kuroo has never heard of. From exotic food and animals brought in to be given to the temple and different attire he sees merchants coming in, Kuroo feels breathless from how there is so much he hasn’t seen in this world. The streets blurs with colors of silks imported in, hums with the different dialects spoken, and contains winged horses and sleepy blue-finned lions in water tanks; ‘ _it almost feels like Iselia is about to explode,’_ Kuroo thinks.

 

Hinata holds onto Kuroo’s sleeve as the black-haired boy leads them through the crowds and near the gates of the village. Kuroo avoids the packs of warriors coming in on horses and carriages; many of them carry a variety of weapons from axes to swords to magical scrolls and a focused presence. He notices a young boy—around their age judging from his height— with messy white-gray hair and a scar on his cheek who stumbles with the heavy crate he carries from the pack of mercenaries, and when their eyes lock, Kuroo looks away and walks faster.

 

He notices when Hinata stops and stares back with a tense, pensive look on his face. He hears the gears in Hinata’s head turning, but the crowds and intimidating presence of the warriors makes Kuroo anxious so he nudges Hinata forward. He waits before reaching a street that doesn’t feel crammed and suffocate him with people before deciding to speak.“The ceremony is suppose to last for a week, right? Each day is dedicated to individuals from a certain city to go through a trial.”

 

“Woah, so you have been paying attention in class lately?” Hinata quipps before getting elbowed by Kuroo. He relaxes and eases up the tense face he had on before. “Yeah, the first day is suppose to be warriors from Asgard, then it’s warriors from Trient, and on the seventh day, it ends with people from Palmacosta. And ouch, that hurt…”

 

“Good, you deserved it.” Kuroo snorts. Hinata sticks his tongue out at him.

 

“They announced the results on the final day, and then Tsukishima has to leave with whoever is decided to be his guardian.” Kuroo ignores the lump in his throat and continues. “Why does he have to leave anyway? That’s ridiculous, he doesn’t have to go on his journey until he’s nearly eighteen.” He feels himself flush in embarrassment from how selfish and unreasonable he sounds but it doesn’t stop him from blurting ridiculous reasons and excuses. With all of this talk about the trials, it bothers Kuroo how always Tsukishima never had a voice in whether he wants it to do it this way or not; for a holy person who garners so much admiration and love from people all over the continent, Tsukishima is constantly treated as if he was only a prop.

 

“I don’t think he has much of a choice, Tetsu. The guardian is tattooed with a special mark and given special powers to show that his or her life is completed dedicated to and in the hands of the Chosen. The reason the priests have been taking this seriously is that it is the guardian that is suppose to go with Tsukishima on his journey to be an angel.” They stay quiet, and Hinata continues to hold onto Kuroo’s wrist as they walk through the forest. “Plus, I think they’ve been wanting to push his journey to be earlier. There’s been merchants coming in recently saying how there has been more human ranches near Palmacosta.” Kuroo feels his skin crawl; human ranches were always avoided to be talked about in Iselia. The thought of another town being rounded up and sent to a prison only to be treated as experiment subjects and be transformed into abnormal gems made everyone freeze in horror.

 

Kuroo shakes his head. “Why isn’t Sugawara his guardian though? He’s been taking care of Kei since he was born.”

 

“You know they would never select a half-elf to be a guardian, much less let us be near the Chosen.” Hinata’s cheeks flush an angry red, and he smooths the long orange locks of hair over his ears.

 

“That’s dumb. Everyone in that temple is dumb, all of this is ridiculous. Why isn’t he allowed to pick? Why are there men who don’t give two damns about Kei making all of his life decisions?” They reach the temple, and Hinata just shakes his head and rubs his thumb against Kuroo’s wrist. It is a small gesture he does to console the fiery black-haired boy whenever he became upset.

 

“I don’t know Kuroo. I think there’s more problems to this world than what Tsukishima can fix.”

* * *

The blonde admits to the bags underneath his eyes to the stress of the trials this week; “The trials also require a lot of diplomacy, so I’ve been meeting with political figures and religious leaders.” he sits on his bed with his glasses off, and Kuroo can see fatigue etched into his skin. “Some of them are absolutely unbearable and rude, I didn’t even know how to deal with them. One refused to be in the same room as Sugawara simply because he’s a half-elf, and another harassed the head priest to select Luin’s candidates before the trials even began. Utterly unbearable.” Tsukishima mutters, repeating the last sentence under his breath over and over again.

 

“What are the point of the meetings?” Hinata asks, patting the sunshine-haired boy on the back in sympathy.

 

The blonde haired boy takes a long, deep breath before bluntly speaking, “I don’t know, I really don’t. It’s all symbolic, it’s all to reach out and make their problems known and show how desperate they are for a miracle. And frankly, I don’t know how your brother puts up with all of this trouble, Hinata.”

 

An hour passes by with idle chatter; Kuroo knows better than to bring up how unfair this all is to Tsukishima, and Hinata knows better than to let Tsukishima know how exhausted and defeated Sugawara comes home every night. There were some things that even if they brought it up, nothing could be done.

 

“I’m so sorry I can’t serve you two tea, I have been a terrible host tonight.” Tsukishima apologizes sincerely before Kuroo and Hinata could console him. “They’ve brought in so many servants and guards for the trials that I can’t walk anywhere without someone pestering me and sending me back to my room. For the love of Martel, they won’t even let me walk into the sanctuary alone.” They bid each other goodnight and left early at sunset to allow Tsukishima to retire to bed.

 

It is evening by the time Hinata and Kuroo stroll back into the village; the hustle and bustle of the morning has dimmed to a quiet murmur and hum of men drinking and chatting outside and merchants setting up tents by the edge of the village. Still-open shops and lit torches outside provide light for the two boys to walk easily without straining their eyes, and when they pass by the schoolhouse, Hinata stops and bids Kuroo goodnight.

 

“I can walk you to your house, you know. I don’t mind.” Hinata waves Kuroo off and shakes his head.

 

“No, I have to pick something up for Suga anyways, and you live in the middle of the forest, so I don’t want you to walk home when it gets darker.” Kuroo furrows his eyebrows and opens his mouth in protest— _“I’ll be fine, it won’t be my first time walking alone in the dark,”_ he wants to say— but Hinata jogs off before Kuroo could say anything.

 

Kuroo shrugs and forgets about how off Hinata was the entire day and blames it on the half-elf’s peculiar personality, and walks to the forest. He waves to the gatekeeper before leaving, and he arrives to his home in a little less than twenty minutes to his father preparing dinner. He sits in front of his father’s famous stew and listens to today’s stories of customers coming in for swords to be forged, and he forgets about Hinata, the decorations, the merchants, the warriors, and the bakers as he eats his fill, cleans up, and goes to bed.

 

. . . . .

 

Kuroo wakes up to a Hinata’s wide-eyed, pale face at his door. He rubs his eyes twice and starts to complain how ungodly late it is for Hinata to be bothering him at this hour and what could it possibly be this important to disturb him from his sleep, but red-head only needs to shake his head and say the following words that gets Kuroo grabbing his father’s sword and sprinting into the forest.

 

“Tsukishima is going to die tonight.”

* * *

 

“Kuroo! Dear Goddess, Tetsurou please slow down!”

 

When Kuroo whips his head around, his vision blurs to the point Hinata’s orange hair blurs with the dark green tree leaves and the blackness of the night, and he feels so nauseated that he has to hold onto his knees and swallow down the bile rising in his throat. He feels as if someone had lit a match and held it to his lungs and let the flesh burn; Kuroo knows he’s been running for far too long and sees his chest racing to catch up with his breath, but he is full of too much panic, anxiety, and utter fear that he drowns in it and can’t even smell his own skin burning.

 

Kuroo feels himself having an anxiety attack. It sinks his claws into his sweating shoulders, into his heavy muscles, into his weary bones until it lodges to his very soul, but he doesn’t stop moving through the forest. He doesn’t stop moving although he feels Hinata’s hands on his, trying to pull him back so he can slow down, calm down, and stop hyperventilating, but he doesn’t because he knows full well that every second is detrimental into saving the Chosen, everyone’s hope, and his very cherished friend.

 

He forgot to grab his cloak in his hurry out of the door, so the dew of the trees sinks and bites into his skin. The leather scabbard around his father’s sword thumps heavy against his back with each step, reminding him that he also forgot to tell his father and imagines Hinata forgetting to tell Sugawara as he dashes out of the door after overhearing a priest speaking with a band of warriors that had arrived earlier that day.

 

‘ _It doesn’t make any sense_ ,’ Kuroo’s mind tells him. ‘ _Why would a priest_ _hire men to kill Tsukishima?’_ , but his mind already knows the answer that they think Tsukishima is too weak and fragile to survive the journey, that it would be easier and faster just to kill him off and wait for the next Chosen in line to arrive and fulfill the duty, and that death saves him more grace and honor than announcing that he is an utter failure.

 

“Kuroo, slow down, we can’t just charge in there or else they’ll slaughter us! Do you even have a plan?”

 

They reach to a stop by a clearing near a river that runs to the back gates of the temple; there’s a black curtain of clouds that dims the moonlight from above and makes Kuroo wish he brought a lantern as well.

 

“We still have time, we can find him and get him out of there.”  Kuroo says between pants. “We can keep him safe, I know we can.”

 

“The people in there are probably twice our size; what do we do if we ran into them?”

 

Kuroo squeezes his eyes shut and keeps them shut for so long Hinata wonders if the black-haired boy lost all motivation and hope and was ready to turn back.

 

“Shouyou, follow me and stay behind me.” He inhales deeply and loosens the sword on his back. “And if I tell you to run, don’t look back and wait for me.”

 

. . . . .

 

It takes a few seconds for Hinata’s eyes to adjust in the pitch black of the night, but he sees the outline of unaccompanied horses and wagons a few paces in front of him and feels Kuroo quietly move past him. He listens for the slow shift of reins as Kuroo unties the horses from the wagons and leads them away before coming back and links his hands with his. _‘I don’t want us to get separated,’_ he hears his thoughts, and he grips Kuroo’s hand tighter.

 

“Whenever you are ready.”

 

Hinata crouches near the end of a wagon, and with Kuroo breathing down his shoulder, he shuts his eyes and mutters a prayer to the spirit of fire and a few other words in a language Kuroo couldn’t understand, and creates a small, burning flame from the palm of his hand. He holds it to the wooden wheel and waits for it to spread before quickly shifting to the other wagons’ wheels. When the half-elf finished, he hears one of the wagons already crumbling in the roar of fire, and they take off sprinting away, feets splashing in mud and grass.

 

They reach the gardens of the temple with a roaring bonfire at their backs. They duck into bushes that scratches and pokes their skin, but Hinata’s heart is pounding and ready to walk out of his chest for him to notice. His eyes catches moving shadowy silhouettes of men who seemed much older than they were running to the wagons, and he hears a cry of surprise.

 

“That’s bound to throw them off.” He hears Kuroo whisper to his right. “That should mess up their attention, so now is the best time to get in.”

 

Hinata waits for Kuroo to jump out first and check before following him and edging along the garden walls to the tree by Tsukishima’s room.

 

“His window is already open,” Hinata points out, and Kuroo tenses up. He could remember clearly Tsukishima shutting his window and drawing the curtains before they left, and there were no traces of footsteps leading away from the wall. The black-haired boy ties his sword to his side and kneels down for the half-elf to wrap his arms around his neck, and they climb to the top and crawl into the room.

 

“His room is empty.” It was bare and neat as it always had been except for the bed sheets lying in a rumpled mess. Hinata feels nauseated when he sees the doors jarring open as if someone had left in a hurry.

“I think he’s still in the temple. What do you think we should do, Shouyou?”

 

“Should we go downstairs and see if he is in the corridors? There is no way he would go outside alone where he would easily get captured. He might be safe with the guards we saw earlier.”

 

“What if he isn’t?” Kuroo asks.

 

“That’s our worst scenario, and we would need to get to him fast without attracting any attention.” Kuroo inhales slowly before nodding and gripping his sword. Hinata realizes that Kuroo has been putting on a brave face for them both despite his fists white and shaking from apprehension. He reaches out for Kuroo’s hand and squeezes his fingers and wishes this was just one horrible dream.

 

“Together?”

 

“Together.”

 

They first saw the tiny drops splattered on the wall. As they creep down the spiral stone staircase, breaths still in their chest and ears listening for the slightest sound, Kuroo could feel the dried drips of blood on the wall. Even in the darkness, he could see the dark red hue on his finger tips and how easily it flaked off showed it is hours old. The stench of blood became stronger and stronger as they reached the bottom, reminding him of the butcher shop’s house and all the times he would pass by and see a dead animal carcass bleeding on the floor. He feels his stomach rising, shaking, erupting and he does everything to bite his tongue and jam his mouth shut to keep his stomach’s contents from pouring out.

 

They reach the bottom, and Hinata hears Kuroo mutter, _“fucking hell,”_ and shields Hinata from a beast devouring a dead, headless guard on the blood-stained floor.

. . . . .

 _We have reached the bottom pit of hell_ , Kuroo thinks as he grasps his sword and dodges behind a column in main hall. He hears the crash of a body slamming into the wall and the roar of Hinata’s flames, and he could barely distinguish anything in the dust and smoke.

 

Creatures with unnatural dark hides and piercing red eyes were crawling all over the temple and feeding onto the corpses of the slain guards and servants on the floor, but as soon as Hinata and Kuroo would enter a room, the monsters would all turn their attention to the two boys and charge forward, claws out and jaws ready to bite into a fresher meal. Whenever Kuroo and Hinata were able to dodge or kill off a pack of monsters and run into the next room, there was always another set of dark wolves, misshapened bats, and ghouls with skin of slime ready to charge at them.

 

Kuroo jumps back and slashes upwards at an enraged ghoul leaping towards him; his sword sinks into its flesh, and when he pulls away, the monster dissipates and releases a wave of energy and leaves a skeleton instead. He barely has any time to lift his sword up when there’s another beast charging at him, and a scorching blast of fire shoots by him and burns the wolf.

 

“Where the hell,” Hinata pants as he runs to Kuroo’s side, “are these monsters coming from? And of all places, why here?” Kuroo recalls his father telling him stories on how the temple is an ancient holy relic that contains endless millenniums of receiving the Goddess’s blessing. Because of the endless blessing that it had always received, the temple has always been regarded as a safe haven from the world—for both visitors and the Chosen.

 

 _‘Until now, that is,’_ Kuroo grimaces as he barely avoids a snarling mouth and stabs a wolf through its stomach. He feels anxious; something tonight had went wrong is what his gut tells him, and that something had to do with Tsukishima.

 

Just by hearing how Hinata is panting tells Kuroo that they won’t be able to last long if they didn’t escape from the main corridor. He feels his muscles burn with exhaustion from dealing with endless assaults of monsters that seem to spring from nowhere. He blocks a blow before striking down a bat, and Kuroo spots the hallway leading to the altar and a plan springs to his head.  

 

“Hinata, is there any way you can clear up a path for us so we can escape to the altar?” He calls out to the redhead and steps back at the wolves beginning to crowd around them.

 

A few seconds ticks by before a wave of fire blasts out from Hinata’s hand as an answer and creates an opening in the crowd of monsters around them. They run down the hallway, escaping the claws of the monsters behind them.

. . . . . .

Kuroo swears he has stepped onto another world. The altar rises so high above the earth below them that Kuroo swears he can see the clouds outside the high-arched windows, and the ivory dome rests high above them. The air is different: heavy to breath in and thick, but Kuroo wants to curl up and sleep in the stillness. ‘ _It’s fitting’,_ Kuroo holds his breath in; this is the very same room where the blonde, beloved hope ascended the stairs every day to kneel at the pedestal and pray for the spirits and the goddess and fairies to spread their blessing to all.

 

As Kuroo climbed up to the pedestal, Kuroo swears his heart stops when he sees Tsukishima collapsed on the floor, in the pool of his own blood. He lays trembling, breath raspy and irregular, and his fingers clutched around the hilt of an embellished dagger. Kuroo gingerly picks him up and rips off cloth from his shirt to wrap it around his wounds. The ebony-haired boy clenches his fist and feels anger flushing his face red, but he doesn't speak and focuses his energy in dressing Kei's wounds the best that he can.

 

“My gods,” Hinata says, “my gods, what happened to you Kei?”

 

“The priests,” the blonde struggles to whisper out his words, “everyone, they’re all dead. This entire thing, it was a set up. The trial was an excuse, and I was their main prop.”

 

“What happened?” Kuroo ushers him to continue talking despite of weakened appearance. He slips out herbs and gels that he kept in his pocket, and starts pressing them against the smaller gashes on Tsukishima’s body.

 

“I woke up from my bed an hour before midnight to crashes in the main corridor. A group of bandits—no, mercenaries hired from the human ranch near us— came in and fought with the guards. Sugawara came and hid me in the storage by the kitchen and covered me with sacks of flour, and he handed me a knife as a way to protect myself if someone had discovered me. One mercenary—one with hair so white and gray and eyes so grim, it was almost as if he was a ghost— had slipped past and went into the altar, and I had went after him.” Tsukishima’s eyes struggled to keep open, and he winces as Kuroo pressed the ointment against his smaller wounds. Kuroo’s memory flashes back to the merchant’s wagon earlier today and remembers the boy with the white hair. His stomach sinks.

 

“My brother,” Hinata says suddenly, “is Koushi okay? What happened?”

 

Tsukishima shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I do not know what has become of your brother.” Hinata closes his eyes, and his shoulders tense up.

 

“Have faith,” Kuroo speaks up, “your brother is neither weak nor a fool. Being the man he is, I am sure he went to alert the town and may very well be on his way back to look for us.”

 

The half-elf’s shoulder droop back down, and Hinata lets a long breath out.“You are right. We would be wise to leave this place immediately” he says before continuing, “But, how are we to carry Kei back out and deal with the monsters outside? Are the monsters in the temple a curse or spell then?”

 

Tsukishima pushes himself into a sitting position with much difficulty. The makeshift dressing Kuroo made helped slow down the blood leaking from his side, but the look of fatigue—and utter defeat— is evident in his face. “No, I am afraid not.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“The boy had used the altar as a medium to transfer his black energy and severed the space between our world and the underworld. I assume by now that every town all over the world are being alerted of monsters prowling by the borders. I fought with the bandit, but as you can see, he had bested me. His mana was so foul and contaminated with evil, and he only had to lift a finger before monsters would run to his aid.” Tsukishima says. “We only have so much time before even the altar will be consumed by monsters.”

 

“Is there anything you can do to reverse this? There has to be a way, aren’t you the Chosen?” Hinata pleads. Tsukishima shakes his head and struggles to stand up.

 

“It has been prophesied that before I am to go on my journey the world will be overwhelmed by monsters. It was not predicted to happen this early.” Tsukishima staggers forward and leans on Hinata’s shoulder. “The only thing I can do now is receive the final blessing from the Goddess that would bare me the Chosen's crest—a jewel I would need in my journey to become an angel and purify this world—, but that cannot be done without a guardian. I am at a loss.” Even from as high up as they were, Kuroo could easily see the monsters crawling around the grounds of the temple, and when he looks up, he sees the beaten faces of his friends. He sees the defeated look on Tsukishima’s face and his stomach flips, and all he can think is _‘I want to spend my life protecting him’._

 

Kuroo has always been known as impulsive, and he has had his fair share of scoldings from elders on how he never seems to think things through. “ _You’ll endanger those around you with how rash you are,_ ” rings in his head. Maybe his head is full of air like what Hinata says, or maybe it isn’t—but he knows that if something will protect his loved ones, he will not hesitate to do it. He steps forward to the pedestal.  

 

“Kuroo, what are you doing?” Hinata’s voice rises and steps in front of the dark-haired boy quickly.

 

“We came here to protect Kei, didn’t we? We have no reason to hesitate in lending a hand.” Kuroo responds before turning to face Tsukishima. “Kei, is it true that whoever is selected as the guardian receives powers able to cut down anyone in their path?”

 

Kuroo stares in the blonde boy’s eyes and waits for his answer. Tsukishima hesitates for a few moments before answering.

 

“Yes. The details are uncertain, but if someone were to become a guardian, he would be able to use mana stronger than the fists of titans.” He pauses before continuing. “However, those who were to become my guardian would also have to bear the pain and the burden of dedicating their lives to me. I do not wish for either of you to throw your lives away for me.” He shakes his head.

 

“If it’s to protect you, then I consider this the best way to spend all of my life.” Kuroo kneels and bends his head down. He hears the flutter of Hinata’s cloak and feels the warm press of Hinata’s arm against his, and they both close their eyes, ready for the ritual to begin.

. . . . .

When Kuroo opens his eyes again a few seconds later, the altar is washed with soft hues of reds, blues, purples, and greens and purifying waves of energy. His ears roar with noise and he’s frozen with wonder at the aura he feels; he sees Hinata’s eyes open and fluttering with awe at the fairies that appear from the air, and he sees Tsukishima’s mouth move with words of prayer. He hears the blonde angel-to-be chants in words he doesn't understand, but the fairies fly and fly around the room and sprinkle white sparkles of light. The blonde Chosen looks exhausted and ready to give out, but he hangs on and finishes the spell. There’s a flash of light and a jewel—a deep blood scarlet with gold embroidery— that appears, floats down in a shining ball of light, and attaches to Tsukishima’s collar bone, and it isn’t until the light disappears that Tsukishima’s body finally gives up and slumps over from exhaustion.

 

 _‘It burns,’_ Kuroo thinks. He sees golden rays of light shoot from the pedestal and pores into his body. He has to close his eyes from the blinding light as it writes on his skin inscriptions he doesn't understand and grits down to bear the stabbing pain he feel. It is as if his skin is being burned away and instead is replaced with black, thick lines that stretch across his arms.

 

He is marked. He is marked with a black emblem and tattoo of a sword and wings. He holds his arm in a futile attempt to quell down the stinging throbs, but he feels power, violent pulsing energy radiating through and vibrating his entire body. He’s in the same body, but he feels reborned, new to the world, remade with muscles rivalling the strength of mythril. The hues of color and the fairies eventually disappear, and the altar returns to its quiet state. The tattoo on Kuroo’s left arm doesn’t leave, and neither does the one on Hinata’s right arm.

 

Kuroo has become Tsukishima Kei’s guardian knight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhh, thank you so much to everyone who left such wonderful comments! please continue leaving me feedback, i love hearing what you guys think!
> 
> hmmmm, who could this white-haired bandit be, hmmmm..... and expect more suga(wara) and new characters in the next chapters to come!
> 
> Come talk to me on tumblr @mellichor!


	3. weep for the monster that falls part i

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello everyone! it's been such a long time, i am so sorry for the wait! at the end i included reasons why i was absent for so long, and as an apology, please enjoy this large chapter i wrote for you all! these are the last childhood scenes i'm going to write before moving on to focusing kuroo's and tsukishima's relationship in the actual journey as well as those around them. this is really long (rip me i don't have a beta), so here is part one and i'll post part two in a few days!

_ month of luna, 1, XX42 _

_ the next morning _

When asked what makes Iselia the village it truly is, many villagers unhesitatingly respond that Sugawara Koushi is the foundation of the entire village.  He wakes up early in morning to go open the wooden schoolhouse and, as the village’s only teacher, prepares the lessons and writing exercises. He’s an enthusiastic teacher—in a sense where he wants to show every student who comes into his classroom that despite their age, has potential waiting to bloom—, but he carries a strict hand and is not one who has patience for pointless games. Tetsurou bears a permanent sore spot on his cheek from all the times he has accidentally fallen asleep in Sugawara’s class and suffered his well-known brutal scoldings and rage-fit eraser throwing.

 

 During the early light of evenings throughout the week, he goes to houses containing ill family members; as the village’s prime healer, he helps sick villagers overcome their illnesses or wounds.  Even at a young age, Sugawara has concocted many healing herbs and potions for even patients who suffered blackened, diseased skins, amputated limbs, and the most peculiar of his talents, the bright white light that would shimmer from his hands and heal a gash in the matter of seconds. He is beautiful as he is extraordinary; the silver-haired seventeen-year-old is known for his beautiful amber eyes, delicate silver curls, and his heart-shaped face, and his beauty transcends normal human’s standards. Despite of what one may feel about the man, he is loved for his overall soothing and understanding personality.

 

Except for the moment Kuroo and Hinata comes back the following sunrise with a battered Chosen on their back.

“Did you even  _ think _ ,” the silver-haired healer paces back and forth in the kitchen room of his house. “did you even think about at least telling an adult before running off? Do you know how many people could have been hurt? My Goddess, do you know how terrified I was when I couldn’t find either of you after coming back from that monstrosity at the temple?”

 

“We’re sorry.”

 

“You could’ve notified someone—anyone, for gods’ sake— to at least come with you, and provide proper emergency medical treatment to Tsukishima. Hinata, I expected you to at least be the rational one out of all of you.”

 

“We’re sorry.”

 

“And Gods,” Sugawara continues to hiss out, “Tetsurou, you didn’t even leave a note to your father, and you stole your father’s sword? You don’t even have an exsphere and had no way in even using mana to protect you, did you think swinging around an iron sword was going to protect you for long? What on earth were you even thinking—  _ were you even thinking _ ?!” He stops his pacing to smack his forehead and rub his temples.  He is worn out after an entire night of fending monsters away from the village, rescuing survivors from the temple, searching after the three boys, and absolutely no sleep. He inhales deeply, reminding himself that the Chosen is asleep and recovering in an adjacent room, and resumes pacing.

“Look at me,” he continues with a lower tone, “I have gray hair because of you two.”

“But Koushi,” Shouyou whines and rubs the handprint on his cheek. The second he and Tetsurou had stepped within the silver-haired man’s field of sight, his older brother smacked the both of them mercilessly, “you’ve always had—”

 

“Dear Goddess,” Sugawara plops down in a chair, presses his palms to his eyes, and moans. “I was so worried about the both of you. What would I have done if I lost you too, Shouyou? And you too, Tetsurou. Goodness, what would your mother have thought of me? How would your father live having lost both his wife and child?” Kuroo swallows the lump in his throat and keeps his head hung down.  Sugawara rubs his eyes. “Oh, this is absolutely a mess, and I have utterly failed.”

 

The older boy gives up reprimanding and sits in the chair, muttering and rubbing his eyes. Tetsurou wonders if it’s the right time to stand up from his spot on the floor; Sugawara had been scolding the both of them for well over thirty minutes and his knees and bottom were feeling numb for kneeling so long. Hinata looks up concerned and horribly sorry for making his brother worry so much over them—the half-elf even fretted as he healed them and wrapped their wounds up in gauze after rushing them back to his house—  and makes an effort to console his older brother.

 

“H-hey, come on now, Koushi,” Hinata says softly, “you didn’t fail, you kept the village safe and you were able to save a few survivors from the temple. We were just being really irresponsible, and we should have let you know.”

 

“We’re really sorry. We only did what we thought was right, and we only wanted to protect a friend.” Kuroo adds.

 

Koushi looks up from his hands and stares at the two boys. They could both see the exhaustion in his eyes and how ready he is to pass out. “I know.” He says softly. It was his way of apologizing for being too harsh. “And I’m as proud as I am angry.” He sighs and pauses before continuing.

 

“I just fear what will happen to the both of you.”

* * *

 

Sugawara was right; he had every reason to fear what the future would bring.

 

As Tetsurou steps onto the wooden platform and looks out over the endless crowd in front of him, he notices the environment isn’t anything similar to when Kei was declared as the Chosen years ago.  The people's’ faces are grim, exhausted, and hold endless lines and wrinkles of fear; when today was suppose to be the third day of the trial, it is only a day filled with anxiety and anger. The town is crammed to the max with all the travelers who originally came for the trial, and Iselia is only two steps away from falling into chaos.

 

_ How does the world suddenly become overrunned by monsters?  _ The crowd is silent, but Tetsurou can hear all of their screaming thoughts.  _ What went wrong in the temple? How are we to live now, in a world with both human ranches and monsters? _

 

His palms are sweaty. He wipes them against the heavy cloak his father gave him early this morning; Tetsurou distracts himself by looking at the elaborate golden thread embroidering the edges, but when he looks back up, he falls back under the heavy glares and uncomfortable hush of the crowd. He hears a man to his right mutters how it’s all a joke and how having a child as the next guardian is one big scam. He hears the merchants whisper how he, a child, cannot be trusted with protecting someone as important as the Chosen.  He hears doubt, doubt, and more doubt, and sees sympathetic looks on the faces of the villagers he grew up with.  He isn’t anywhere similar to the blonde beacon of hope; Tetsurou induces fear and hopelessness whereas Kei creates faith and belief.

 

Instead, he is to take the hate and blame for what others have caused.

 

His father is to his left, and Tetsurou steels himself to not look at him. He doesn’t want to see the face of his father who hears all of crude words the audience says about his son. He feels Koushi’s hand gripping his shoulder, a gesture to say  _ I am with you. _ Tetsurou wonders where Hinata is at and wishes he could be right next to him, but then he remembers what would happen if the people were to know that a half-elf is also the Chosen’s guardian. He wonders where Kei is at and hopes Sugawara hid him somewhere where he is safe. He takes a deep breath in;  he becomes a shield to cover the blame from his loved ones in front of a crowd ready to release arrows of anger.

 

He feels Koushi’s hand go loose, and a guard steps forward and pushes him to the edge.  He cups his hands over his mouth to shout for everyone’s attention before tightly gripping Tetsurou’s forearm and thrusting it into the air. The mark on his right arm is on display to the crowd in front of him. The audience roars. The audience moves—a few exhausted and ready to finally leave the village and return home, a mob lunging forward to argue with the guard.

 

Sugawara grabs him and pushes him away from the platform. The silver-haired man holds Kuroo’s face to his chest and walks quickly away. Kuroo’s ears are covered and he’s blind to everything that is happening, but he feels Sugawara shove people away from him and hears the burning words aimed toward them. He hears the heated  _ “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry,”  _ Koushi whispers in his ears as he fights to get away from the mob.

 

He sleeps that night sweating, enveloped in a cage of heat.

* * *

_ month of volt, 18, XX42 _

 

When he first touches an exsphere— the only thing his mother leaves him before she died on the human ranch, Tetsurou jerks his hands back and yelps at the burn left on his fingers. The gem swirls with silver and a faint purple and gave no visual cue that it is hair-raising freezing. His father calmly holds it in his hand, and sits in front of the roaring fire in the eating room of their house.

 

“Father,” Tetsurou begins after the pain from his fingers disappear, “what is that, and why does it hurt so bad?” He doesn’t try to hold it again with his fingers still throbbing from the pain, and he wonders why his mother would ever try to leave him a tiny rock that hurts.

“This is your mother—or all that’s left of her. Did you know that she was known in Iselia for always having an attitude? She had put up a fight no matter where she went. Even when they took her to the human ranch, she died escaping and putting up a fight.”

 

It’s the first time Tetsurou has ever heard of his mother. He always had a faint idea that she existed at one point of time, and that after she passed away, he was adopted by a lonely dwarf who is a well-known blacksmith. He was always aware, but it wasn’t until now he could actually sink into the information.

 

And well, why should he even bother to care? Tetsurou always reasoned that blood never actually mattered in whether who is in his family. A man who had no plans in taking care of a child still took him in and loved him with all of his heart, and in return, Tetsurou sees himself blessed with having such a kind father. He isn’t related in the slightest to Sugawara or Hinata, yet the half-elf brothers always took great care of him and never minded the fact that he is a human. His father continues to speak on and on about Tetsurou’s mother and honey-brown hair and ruddy cheeks and freckled nose she had, but no matter how hard he tries, Tetsurou just can’t form an image of her. 

 

But there is an empty and tiny space in his heart that he feels when he takes his father’s thick gloves and cups the lavender gem. And there is a small flip his heart makes when he hears that his mother never gave up on him, even when she was fatally sick from all the experimenting they done to her on the ranch. His face scrunches up when he hears his first pair of swords—simple, plain wooden twin swords he would carry around with him everywhere—were actually his mother’s, and she left them next to a one-year-old Kuroo by the edge of a cliff. He tries to imagine a woman—with honey-brown hair and ruddy cheeks and a freckled nose—leaving him with a letter by a cliff where a dwarf would eventually find him, but he doesn’t understand how she managed to escape a human ranch and why she would ever leave her son alone. He feels as if a part has been left out, but his father doesn’t stop to address it.

 

“Tetsurou, do you know why I am giving this to you now?” He shakes his head, and the gem is taken out of his hands.

 

“Your mother always wanted to see you grow up and become the man you are turning into now. She would be happy to know that you are Kei’s guardian and have been pushing yourself to become stronger for everyone’s sake.” The dwarf says. “When she died, her soul turned into this gem—this exsphere—, and with this you can be even stronger than before. With an exsphere, you can use mana as if you were a half-elf. With this, your mother will be able to see you get stronger and stronger by the day and see you protect the people you love.”

 

Tetsurou goes to bed later with his father’s words still on his mind and the exsphere still in his hand. He listens to the dwindling crackles of the fire below in the kitchen and his father’s heavy footsteps around the forge. The dwarf promised he would get started in creating a key crest, an emblem made out of magical ore that would attach to Tetsurou’s hand and null any pain he feels from the exsphere, but with his adopted son’s urgings to get rest, he decided to wait until tomorrow to begin.

_ Can she see what is happening to the world outside? Does she feel cold? What does she think of me now? _ Despite the embarrassment he feels from thinking such foolish thoughts, he tugs his blanket up to his chin and with the edges, creates a cocoon for his mother—the gem, he corrects himself—to stay warm in. He knows his efforts are futile; to become an exsphere, humans would have to die and their bodies are harvested, but he feels there is a piece missing. He turns over and tries to rid of the thoughts of what his mother’s last thoughts were, and tries to get some rest.

 

For the first time ever, he goes to sleep aching for someone he has never seen.

* * *

_ month of efreet, XX43 _

 

Sometimes, Tetsurou doesn’t realize the world crumbling around them.

 

Ever since becoming Kei’s guardian, Tetsurou has fallen to a constant routine. Before the sun even considers to wake, he is up and about in the kitchen, grilling a hearty breakfast of meat and eggs for both his father and himself. Every morning, he tends to the chickens and goats outside, washes his face in the river’s icy water, and collects mint leaves for his father to have later. Tetsurou heaves coal into his father’s forge until he feels hot air blowing from its stomach, and finishes yesterday’s orders of amulets, weapons, and shields. He doesn’t consider himself to have skill anywhere near the level of his father’s, but he finishes small orders to help reduce the load. Before he runs to leave the house, he abides to his father’s warning to not let anyone see he has an exsphere and wraps his hand up in bandages to cover his key crest.

 

By the time the sun is rising its head over the mountains, Tetsurou is already outside Kei’s house. The blonde always scolds him how he comes too early and how he will tire himself out, and  _ ‘Tetsurou, I understand you have responsibilities, but please for the love of Goddess, take care of yourself first!’  _ has become a frequent ‘good morning’ to Tetsurou’s ears. It’s true that there are times where his arduous morning routines leaves him exhausted, but he enjoys seeing the blonde’s face in the morning and doesn’t mind waiting for him. He picks up a few pebbles to toss at Kei’s windows, and it takes a few seconds before he sees the curtains move and the blonde poking his head outside.

 

“Give me a few minutes, and I’ll be ready!” Tsukishima says, and his head disappears.

Ever since the temple fell into ruin a year ago, an elderly couple offered to take in the Chosen and care for him in a ivory-colored cottage near the edge of the village. It took awhile for the blonde boy to get accustomed to the new change of not being overwhelmed by priests everyday and living in a temple all by himself.  

 

However, everyone welcomed the change and the effects it brought with it: Kei’s cheeks were fuller and rosier, his face was less sullen and more smiling, and there was more of a hop to his every step. He still has a skinny and bony body structure, but he stayed out in the sunshine more, helping Sugawara prepare the schoolhouse and feeding all of the stray dogs in the town. Phaidra, the tiny, bubbly blonde elderly woman that took him in, took justice in snipping the frizzier ends of his hair, fixing the wobbly legs of his glasses, and carving the boy’s first pairs of chakrams.  _ Kei has become more radiant than how he has ever been, _ Tetsurou smiles to himself.  

 

Iselia returned to how it was after the temple fell. After the merchants and mercenaries and foreign ambassadors and priests all left with their heels kicking up dust, Iselia relaxed its shoulders and  _ breathed  _ as it returned to a tiny country village with its nearly-insignificant name. Children went back to school; Koushi led sermons in the school’s courtyard during the weekend’s noontime.

 

Kuroo sleeps with his windows open; he stops waking up crying, sweating and panting from the heat.

 

The world outside of Iselia, on the other hand, crumbles.

 

With the temple crumbling, monsters and vicious beasts began appearing in all areas all over the continent. No person in their right mind dares to travel outside without some sort of protection: merchants enter Iselia with group of soldiers to help fend off the crawling monsters, the black market would smuggle exspheres and scrolls to mercenaries who are frequently in demand, and towns established a village guard that would stand watch at throughout the day for any monsters.  Tetsurou didn’t dare to leave his house without his twin swords sitting on his hip.

 

The door softly swings shut, and the black-haired boy looks up to see the Kei join his side with a half-tied satchel on his shoulder.

 

“Shall we go?”

… … …

“Again? He’s not coming  _ again _ ?” Kuroo wipes his mouth with the back of his hand before lowering his voice. Unlike the black-haired boy sprawled on the ground bellyside-down, Kei sits opposite of him with his back tall, legs neatly tucked underneath him and quietly chewing his food before continuing.

 

“Yeah. When I stopped by, Koushi said he had already left. He seemed surprised when he heard that Shouyou wasn’t with us all day.”

 

“I wonder what he is up to. You know I haven’t talked to him in awhile? Whenever I tried to come over, he is either gone or in a rush to leave his home, and whenever I try to ask him about it, he gets all jumpy!”  Tetsurou groans and nestles his chin into the scratchy grass beneath him before wincing and fixing his position. They had been finishing up their lunch underneath the shade of willow tree off by the school’s courtyard. 

 

“You think you said something to upset him?”

 

The dark-haired boy groans. “Man, why do you think it’s always me stirring up the trouble?” He pouts and sneakily tries to steal a slice of meat from Kei’s tin. The blonde continues eating, not bothering to swat his hand away this time, and instead raises an eyebrow.

 

“Do you really want me to bring up all of the times your words managed to offend him or somebody else? Remember that one time during the spring prayers, and you—,” Tetsurou winces and waves the blonde’s mouth to shut.

 

“Please don’t bring up that time.”

 

“Then I’ve won my case.” The blonde calmly says and shoos away the other boy’s hand. He jams the last piece of fruit into his mouth before Kuroo could try to steal anything else.

 

“But, I really don’t recall anything I could’ve possibly said to make Shouyou upset! I’ve gotten a lot better being more mindful. Besides, it isn’t just me he’s acting funny around. He hasn’t even been doing his guardian responsibilities recently, and I don’t even see him studying or practicing his magic! So what am I supposed to do now?”

 

“You got a point.” The blonde Chosen sighs and hands his tin box to the black-haired guardian for him to finish. Tetsurou had already finished his lunch long ago, but it was a measly sandwich with a few slices of apples he packed in a hurry. He smiles up at the blonde in gratitude and takes his time finishing off Kei’s food. “But, there is only so much we can do.”

 

“Wmat dwo you phean?”

 

“Please chew before talking, you know how that grosses me out!” Kei cringes and covers his ears.

 

“Sorry!” Tetsurou gives a sheepish smile before swallowing down his food. “What do you mean?”

 

“I mean, if you have already asked him on multiple occasions and he doesn’t tell you, then I think this is something he needs to come to us to talk about whenever he is ready. I think all you can be right now is to be patient. Besides,” Tsukishima pauses before continuing, “I think there are much more dire issues at our hands we need to be more concerned about.”

 

“Like what?”

 

“They spotted people by the old human ranch this morning.” Tetsurou stops chewing when his heart flops. “I heard the mayor saying that there’s a good chance the area is active again, and the men there use every chance to harass villagers or take in captives.”

 

The dark-haired boy feels his skin crawl and itch as if he spent all day laying on a hill of ants and sand. He listens to a very word while his skin pricks with sweat and goosebumps and he fights the urge to run. He rubs his wrist, fingering the bandage wrapping around his palm; he thinks of his mother being taken away in the middle of the night from the safety of her home, locked tight in the hold of disgusting men for the sake of experimentation and exspheres.

 

The gem burns hot against his skin.

 

Noticing how quiet his guardian became, Tsukishima clears his throat and pats Kuroo’s knee in an attempt to show comfort. “Chin up Tetsurou, we will be fine, I promise. As long as we stay away from the human ranch and travel in groups, there is no reason for them to take any of us.” He says as he stands and offers Tetsurou his hand.

 

“Come now, let’s go down to the market. We promised we would help the baker finish his order of bread today, yes?”

 

… … …

“You sure your dad is alright with me joining for dinner?” The soft voices of two boys drift up and joins the forest’s afternoon hum. They trudge over the hills together, wiping the sweat from the warm sun off their forehead. 

 

Summer is quickly drawing to a close as fast as it came, and the early signs of autumn pops around them as bright gold leaves shivering in the trees. The earthy scent of the forest envelopes the both of them as if it is a doting parent, not seeing its children in such a long time. The gentle aroma has always been Tetsurou’s favorite; one that would never fail to grant him company on his way home as well as comfort. 

 

“Yeah, of course! He keeps telling me to invite you over more for dinner, but I know how stern Phaidra can be. You know he is making one of those dwarven meat pies? I ask him all the time for it, but he never makes it for me!” Kuroo licks his dry lips, feeling his stomach grumble. His father’s dishes are the best in the world, and no chef could ever make better food than him.

 

“Does this mean he likes me more than his own son?” The blonde teases. His blonde bangs sticks lightly to his forehead, and Tetsurou has to urge to flick it with his finger.

 

“Hey, I—! You know what, you are probably right.” He fakes a defeated sigh that doesn’t last long when he hears the blonde give out a loud laugh.

 

“I’m excited for your dad’s food, you always make it sound like the best in the world.”

 

“It  _ is  _ the best in the world.” Kuroo says.

 

Kei smiles. “When we get there, you really have to show me the animals you have there! You know, I have never seen—,” their conversation ends off abruptly as they stop suddenly.

 

Off in the clearing a few rock tosses away, Hinata kneels behind a bush, his cloak drawn over his head and a heavy satchel lying on his back. He seemed on edge, his nerves trembling and his head tilting over to the path leading to the darker parts of the forest.  _ What in the name of the Goddess is he doing there? _ Kuroo wonders and bites back the urge to shout for the redhead’s attention. After awhile, the half-elf finally moves.

 

He passes the faded sign written with scraggly handwriting,  _ ’Caution _ — _ human ranch ahead’. _

 

“ _ What, _ ” Kuroo hisses with a sharp bite, “ _ in the bloody hell does he think he is going? _ ”

 

“Tetsurou, wait!” The blonde quickly follows the fuming black-haired guardian, pale and eyes wide. “Hold on, we can’t just go in there! They kill anyone who trespasses into their territory!”

  
Hearing no response from Tetsurou, Kei could only whisper a short prayer before dashing after his guardian storming down the trail to the human ranch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so the reason why i have been so slow in writing/updating was because in march/april i had to go through surgery and this sort of chemotherapy treatment. i'm still recovering, but with me graduating from highschool (finally) and having free time after work, i should be much more frequent in updating this story and two lonely beasts (which you all should check out if you enjoy fantasy/disney kurotsuki aus)!
> 
> thank you all for being so patient and encouraging with me; you all know that leaving kudos/comments gives so much love and motivation to a writer, so please feel free to leave some! i hope you all enjoyed this chapter, angels. c:
> 
> the childhood scenes are officially over in the next chapter, and then the real journey begins!


	4. weep for the monster that falls part ii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this in two days (only because helena is fantastic and the most angelic friend i could ever ask for)......rip me and my soul, here lies the author

A pile of cracked pistachio shells lies scattered all over the ground, and the boy gently sweeps all the ones that stood out to the side. He reaches into his satchel before pulling out another handful of nuts and dried fruit and cautiously passing it between the wires of fence. He sends a quick ‘thank you’ to the Goddess for his small hands and regrets all the times he was angry at his brother for teasing him for his ‘baby hands’. 

 

Shouyou sits in front of steel gates that tower high above him, intimidating and heart-gripping terrifying of what is contained behind it. He sits smiling in front of something that even caused the Goddess to weep, hidden carefully in a far left corner of the gates where the bushes pokes into his back. The gates are built with unrecognizable metal the half-elf has never seen in all of his life, and as he peers through the fence, he could see complicated buttons and lights flashing on the inner edge of the gates.

 

“Thank you, Shouyou. You are such a kind person for always stopping by to visit me and bringing food, too.” An older girl with messy, short brown hair gives a gentle smile before accepting the half-elf’s kind offering. Her dark brown eyes fall as she says, “They haven’t been feeding me as well as usual.” Her pale skin stuck unnaturally to her thin bones as if they were wet paper, and even in her gray prisoner clothes, he notices how much thinner she has become since last time. He swallows a thick lump in his throat that he blames the pistachios for, and not the fear he feels for his friend.

 

“Hey, you know I always like to visit you, Yui! I’ll figure out a way to get you out of here, I promise!” He assures her quickly. He wonders how she is able to offer a smile even when she is clearly beaten with exhaustion.

 

“How is it going as one of the Chosen’s righthand guardian? I hardly believed my ears when I heard! I thought the elders were just trying to fool me, but when I saw the flash of light, I . . .,” She grins happily, her chipped, crooked teeth showing proudly as she holds a hand over her heart. “Imagine, one of my dear friends helping the Chosen restore this world back to how it was…” she sighs with a dreamlike look on her face. For someone who is forced to labor painstakingly in the dry heat and shoved underground whenever needed for cruel testing, her head never stops reaching for the sky.

 

Hinata gives a wistful smile. “Eh, it’s not that big of a deal. I’m nothing compared to Tetsurou anyways.” 

 

“Oh, that’s your best friend you keep talking about, right? Why do you say that, I’m sure Tetsurou is grateful to have you by his side!”

 

“I feel . . . .” The redhead exhales slowly, refusing to meet the girl’s eyes as he draws patterns in the dirt. He realizes this is the first time he ever tried to address the closed-off frustration and thoughts he had been harboring for the past months. “I feel so ashamed. And embarrassed that he has to keep taking the blame and cover for me. Even with Koushi, they are all scared about people finding out the Chosen’s other guardian is a half-elf. It took Sugawara such a long time to find a village that tolerated having a half-elf boy and his half-elf baby brother. But to find out a guardian is a half-elf is . . . .”

 

He breaks off, and Yui doesn’t bother to usher him to finish his sentence.  _ Sometimes, I wish I was born as a human instead. _ Shouyou has always struggled with his insecurities being raised in a village as the only half-elf boy around; he grows out his hair to cover his pointed ears, he practices his magic in the private tight space of his room, and he learns all of the human traditions that are unnatural to him and unlearns the half-elf traditions that are natural. He doesn’t dare to talk about his anguish with his older brother; Hinata knows full well how much the silver-haired man struggles in Iselia himself.

 

Hinata prides himself on his intelligence; he has studied and practiced his magic fervently ever since he was a child, desperate to counter all of the stereotypes of half-elves being classless and barbaric.  Every word that ever left his mouth was smart, planned correctly for virtually no room for error; he can’t  _ afford  _ errors.

 

He forces himself to keep his head high even when surrounded by humans that doubt him, doubt his worth. He has difficulty talking about his feelings and insecurities after building such an intense defensive exterior for so many years to prove others of his worth, that even if he grew up without any parents and only an older brother who labored to become everything to Hinata even when they had nothing, he must be perfect—without flaws, without any hesitation in his answers, without any time to take pride in his identity and race. But more than anything in the world, Hinata wants  _ for just once _ to show Sugawara that all the sacrifices he made were for something. Not nothing. For just once, he wants to feel validated.

 

He can’t afford anything less than perfection. 

 

“You know,” Yui finally says slowly, words soft and careful. “you aren’t like  _ them _ . Don’t hold yourself for the actions that they do. You are one person; one person can’t be held responsible for an entire group.”

 

“That’s not what others see. That’s not what humans see. They,” The redhead hesitates and awkwardly gestures all over his body before continuing, “they all see me like the rest of them.”

 

There’s a long pause. Hinata tucks his hands underneath him, and the leaves around them rustle. He feels how gritty the dirt is beneath him and how all of the pent-up feelings of his inferiority washes up onto the shores in his chest, the waves beating at the solid land.

 

Yui speaks up after a few minutes have passed. “I don’t see you like the rest of them.” And with that, the silence washes over them.

 

They lose track of the time, to which Hinata regrets later. 

 

Hinata notices the rock embedded in Yui’s right hand. He leans forward, carefully taking her hand into his and studies the orange gem implanted into her skin. As he presses his thumb to it, he winces as his skin hisses and burns and pulls his thumb away quickly. Hinata felt heat worthy to compete against all of the sun spirits in the world in the gem, pulsing like a fire out of control.  “Yui, what is this?”

 

She blinks up at him in surprise.  _ Can she not feel any pain?  _ the redhead wonders as he sees her veins unnaturally and painfully bulged and twisted around the jewel. “Oh, this? They placed this on me awhile ago. I’m not really sure what it is or what it does.”

 

He frowns. He feels something unsettling in the pit of his stomach, but he can’t put his finger on it. “Does it not hurt? Even when you touch it, do you even feel any heat?” 

 

She shakes her head and looks up at him with confusion. “No, not at all. Until you brought it up right now, I haven’t even noticed my veins looking like that.”

 

His ears pound. Before he could say anything else, he hears a shout in the distance, and Yui’s hand yanks away.

 

“Hey, old hag! What the hell are you doing over there?” In the distance, a guard gestures over two other guardsmen as he points to the hidden spot the brown-haired girl is at. Two other guardsmen look up from their prison units and gather together to look towards the fence.

 

“Oh, dear Goddess,” she breathes before spinning around, “It’s the Desians! Shouyou, you need to run away now before they see you!”

 

Panic spreads like a wildfire through his body, burning every sense of rationale and sense in sight.  _ I can’t leave you behind _ rings in his head, but he obeys her like the coward he is and sprints away, heart hammering in his chest. Hinata trips, his foot catching onto the hem on his cloak, and he crashes to the ground. He struggles to get up and maneuver around with his sprained arm, but his satchel with his scrolls are too far away.

 

He hears the sound of a whip and Yui’s scream in the distance. 

 

_ “Oh gods, oh gods, this isn’t happening,” _  he cries as he struggles, his brain shutting off as he hears heavy footsteps draw closer. He hears another scream, and then another scream, and rage and fear fills him to the point he is drowning.  _ They’re punishing her for slacking off, _ he realizes, _ and they are sending one of the guardsmen to come outside of the gates. _

 

“Over there!” One of the guardsmen spots the redhead and yanks him up by his collar. “One of us? Why is one of our brethren here speaking to human scum?” Hinata holds in his breath, completely surrendering in the grips of the soldier as he pull out his sword. He feels his breath turn blue from the man’s grip blocking his windpipe.

 

“We don’t sympathize with double-crossers. Kill him off.” He feels the steel of a sword against his skin, and Hinata shuts his eyes as he imagines  _ red, red, red, _ reds hotter than the angriest sun spirit and his brother finding him in a pool of waste, waste of blood and time. 

 

“Get your hands off of him!” He is thrown back down to the ground. The air is knocked out of him from the impact, and he feels another bruise forming on the back of his head. He sees a blur of yellow and red fleeting to him, bright against the hazy silver and brown background. A pair of arms lift him up gently and his head rests against a firm chest. He hears a pained grunt and the screech of metal.

 

“Shouyou, listen to me. Are you okay? Can you hear me?” Tsukishima appears in his vision, holding onto Hinata tightly in his arms. After hearing a disoriented response from the mage, Tsukishima mutters a few word before a translucent fairy appears, spiraling over Shouyou as cool green shimmer floats down from her body. He feels as if he was dipped into a stream and pulled him out again, and the pain in his body swells down.

 

When his vision is cleared, he sees Kuroo in front of him, swords drawn and painted in blood. Shouyou sees the stain of blood on Tetsurou’s shirt, splatter of red on Kei’s cheek, and the warm corpses lying still on the ground. Kei’s mouth seems to move so fast that his ears can’t keep up with his eyes, and Tetsurou seems so slow and frozen in shock that he wonders if his ears are even working. 

 

It was the first time they ever killed another living being. It was the first time Tetsurou ever killed another living being.

  
  


“Go,” Kuroo trembles, staring at the pool of red on the ground. “We need to go. They have already seen us.”

 

They run back through the forest as a shrill noise sounds through the ranch.  They charge through bushes and trees, nearly blind in the early evening light. They run from their mistakes, from their deeds, from monsters who call themselves beings, and they don’t stop until they are at a stream far away.

 

Shouyou looks away as Tetsurou washes his hands in the stream.

 

… … …

They don’t acknowledge what happened.

 

The next following weeks, Tetsurou and Kei don’t see Shouyou at all. He doesn’t show up at the school or for any of the weekly training sessions they have with Sugawara. Lunches are quiet with Tetsurou frowning and softly tugging  his bread apart, and Kei quietly chews, never knowing exactly what to say that the black-haired guardian wouldn’t give a disgruntled, mindless response to. In the village’s praying sessions, Tetsurou mutters his prayers half-heartedly under his breath; they have been preaching that the Goddess loves everyone, yet he feels he has become too stained for even the Goddess to love.

 

It doesn’t take long for others to notice.  One morning outside of the schoolyard, Sugawara walks up to the two boys, face lined with exhaustion and concern. Tetsurou wonders how much the silver-haired man knows as he looks up from his primer. 

 

“Good morning, Koushi.” Kei says quietly, as polite as ever. “You look like you have not slept well.”  _ Neither have we, _ Tetsurou thinks to himself.

 

“He won’t talk to me about what’s been bothering him.” The young man doesn’t bother to beat around the bush and sits down next to them. The schoolyard is still considerably empty considering it is still early for the other schoolchildren to come. With his shoulders slumped and face neutral, Tetsurou can’t help but think Koushi finally looks like the age he truly is and not someone who is older, burdened daily by heavy responsibilities.

 

“Are you talking about Shouyou?” Kei asks. The young teacher nods.

“Ever since that day, he hasn’t been the same. He is so quiet at home, and he doesn’t even bother to touch his food. I’ve been giving him space and giving him his assignments he keeps missing, but I don’t even think he is bothering to put in the effort.” Koushi says, the stress in his face becoming more and more profound with every word he speaks. He pauses before turning his head to the boys. “You wouldn’t know what happened, would you?” He says quietly.

 

They stay quiet. They don’t talk about what happened, about hot reds and pink water and wet grass.  _ If we do, I’ll snap, _ Tetsurou thinks. He doesn’t want the realization that he committed an act that is as vile and repulsive as the Desians would do. He doesn’t want to acknowledge that the same sensation of a warm dead body in his hands is the same as when those priests were killed at the temple a year ago. He doesn’t want to accept, because if he accepts, he’ll break.

 

So he doesn’t. “It’s not something for us to tell you. He needs to be the one that talks to you about what happened.” Tetsurou says curtly, not bothering to meet the others’ eyes. Koushi stays quiet, and Kei stares at the guardian for a little bit longer than necessary.

 

“Oh.” The guilt coils up in his stomach as Sugawara stands up. “I see.”

 

Kuroo doesn’t pay attention in class that day.

 

It isn’t until after the second week of absence that Hinata comes back to class again. It stays silent and tense; the redhead and Tetsurou don’t exchange any words with Kei placed awkwardly in the middle as a mediator. They don’t see the half-elf during lunch.

 

The raids into Iselia also stops. For two weeks, the villagers aren’t intruded by brown- uniformed soldiers at the middle of the night. They don’t hear anything about another person being taken to the human ranch nor do they see pairs of the guardsmen floating around harassing bystanders in the village. 

 

“It’s a blessing from the Goddess!” Tetsurou hears the butcher exclaim at a town meeting one day. The guardian disagrees inside of his head; the unusual absence—and lack of uninterrupted sleep—makes him more paranoid and more jumpy. As a result, he starts arguing more with Kei.

 

“Please, Tetsurou,” Kei finally snaps one evening after Tetsurou was startled by the sound of a raccoon in a bush, “you need to  _ sleep _ . You can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

 

“Doing what? I’m fine.” The black-haired boy says as he absentmindedly rubs the bags underneath his eyes. He had been accompanying the blonde to wherever he went for the past weeks—” _ I’m your guardian, I refuse to leave you alone and unprotected,”  _ he says with too much of a bite the last time Kei brought it up— and consequently, he has hardly had any time to rest or take care of himself.

 

“You obviously aren’t! Look at you, you haven’t been eating or sleeping or even been paying attention to anything!” Kei spins in front of him, voice raising and fists clenched. Tetsurou feels thrown through a loop because he has never seen the Chosen anything but patient and put-together. “You couldn’t and  _ can’t  _ change anything about what happened, what has happened already happened! You need to be easier on yourself!”

 

The ebony-haired boy stares at the blonde for a few seconds before recovering from the shock and  _ snaps _ . He’s sick of walking on shells, he’s sick of everyone and everything, he’s sick of feeling targeted and being responsible for everything anyone ever does. He snaps like a thread pulled too tight and yells back.

 

“What, now you are preaching to  _ me _ ? Get off your damn high horse Kei, I don’t need you telling me what I should be doing!” His words are hot steel hitting against thin skin, and he sees the fair-skinned boy reel back, burned and in pain. 

 

“I’m not trying to patronize you,” the blonde stammers weakly, “I’m only trying to help.”

 

“Listen, I don’t need you to always harp on me! You’re so annoying, get off my back for once! Stop acting like you always know the solution to everything when you clearly don’t!”

 

“You know what?” Tetsurou says breathless, anger and irritating married in with his voice. “I’m done. If you think you are so good at knowing what to do, then good luck taking care of yourself, Tsukishima.” He walks away, abandoning the boy by the lone lamp on the street. Kuroo doesn’t bother to leave his room the next day. He spends the day thinking and thinking and thinking to the point he is brimming with regret and disgust with himself. There is no doubt that his two best friends must hate him.

 

He takes off his exsphere from its hiding place underneath the bandages. He places it next to his bed and stares at it until his right arm becomes numb and he has to readjust his position. He rubs the black tattoo on his right arm, digging his nails in to scratch off the skin. He checks his thumb—he doesn’t see any black smears and the mark is still there.

 

He feels like the most despicable person on this planet.

* * *

 

On Friday evening, Kuroo waves goodbye to the baker as he walks up the hill. His hands are sweaty, but he knocks on the door anyways. He feels his exsphere pulse against his skin in comfort, as if his mother is slowly pushing him forward to fix what he broke.

 

The door swings open to show Sugawara’s face. It takes him a few seconds to register the black-haired teenager at his door by the way his eyes widen in surprise, but Koushi pulls the door wider open.

 

“Come in,” he gestures to the other boy, quickly closing the door behind him. Tetsurou sees Kei and Shouyou look up from their spot at the table. There’s an uncomfortable, tense pause in the room that makes Kuroo want to turn around and sprint out of the village, but he stands there. 

 

“Oh,” he begins lamely, “hey.” Shouyou nods back, and Kei mumbles a hello. Koushi passes by him to place a kettle on the stove, and he takes a seat on the opposite side of the table.

 

He doesn’t know how to start. The insides of his stomach squirms at all of the words he said to the blonde in front of him and how difficult he has been for the past two weeks. He keeps his eyes down, and Tetsurou runs over the words in his head again and again until he can find a mediocre phrasing. He has always been incredibly horrendous at wording what he wants to say.

 

“Koushi,” he starts off, not bothering to beat around the bush, “the other week, I went to the human ranch and I—”

 

“Kuroo,” Sugawara cuts him off before he could ramble any longer. “They already told me everything that happened.” A thick tense silence envelopes them like a wet blanket, their arms too weak and exhausted to bother lifting it away. Kei keeps staring at his feet, and Shouyou looks away stoically. Tetsurou has never felt so distant from them in his entire life.

 

“I’m sorry,” Tetsurou starts again, this time quietly and he doesn’t bother to hide the fatigue in his voice,”it was all of my fault. I should’ve been more responsible and not have—,”

 

“ _ Your fault? _ ” Hinata slams his palms on the table and stands, startling the other people at the table. He leans forward, trembling and glaring at the dark-haired boy. A knife slices off strips of the wet blanket. “All of it was my fault! Stop avoiding the fact that if it wasn’t for me, none of us would be having these issues right now!”

 

Kei reaches out a hand and makes an attempt to soothe the redhead before the fire got out of hand. 

“But they saw me, not you. You weren’t the one who killed the guard. None of this is your fault.” Hinata lunges forward as Kuroo says that and yanks on his collar. His brother reaches out and tries to pull him back, but the fire flames and flames higher and higher until it burns the sun.

 

“If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have to put up with the weight of that decision! We’re kids, you’re a kid—a fourteen year old boy should not have to be traumatized with that! I’m at fault, because of me, everyone is—,” Shouyou drops his hands before covering his face.

 

“Shouyou, stop this.”

 

“Oh my god.”

 

“Shouyou, please—,”

 

“Why do I exist? Why am I even a guardian if I can’t do anything right?”

 

“Please,” Tetsurou stands up, “you have to stop, you can’t keep blaming yourself for something that wasn’t your fault!”

 

“I thought you hated it when people told you what to do.” Kei joins bitterly, turning his head away to avoid his eyes. The ocean between them enlarges, pushing them further away with all of its might. The ocean burns. Whatever conviction Tetsurou seemed to have before coming here to fix the problems they are having slowly drips away.

 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean what I said.” He says with a drained feeling in his chest. The other boy keeps his head turned away, and Hinata sits down in a slump with his hands over his head. Sugawara looks up at him, as stunned and lost at what to do as Kuroo was. “You know I am a fool without your guidance. And the same to you, Shouyou.”

 

The tension in the room is quickly cut off as a scream pierces through the air. Someone harshly pounds on the door, and Koushi opens the door to the frazzled blacksmith panting and sobbing. The sight of the dishevelled man throws them off and distracts them from the heated flood of emotions.

 

“The silversmith,” the man breaths in and out roughly, as if his lungs were punctured open, “ _ they are here. _ ”

 

Koushi snatches his staff by the door and shoves past the man, sprinting down the hill. The boys quickly rush after him, following the bloodcurdling screams and the smoke billowing above the houses. Tetsurou grips his swords tightly, his mother’s soul burning against his flesh as he runs to the center of the village. There’s a sickly orange hue in the evening sky; the dark-haired boy spots the silversmith’s daughter collapsed on the ground and her father at the brunt end of a Desian’s sword.

 

The town’s guard is cornered away from the family with their weapons on the floor and their hands cuffed. A fire rages from the pits of what used to be the silversmith’s house . The baker and his wife are pushing the other members of the silversmith’s family away, to hide behind them. In the middle of the squadron of Desian soldiers stands a man with a thick staff and the lid of his helmet raised. The mayor is at his knees, pleading and begging for the them to leave the family alone and not take the silversmith’s sick children to the ranch. His words fall on deaf ears.

 

Before the sword thrusts through the silversmith, Koushi raises his staff as he mutters an enchantment and draws an aura of ghosty, mystical white mana to him. A burst of light blasts forward and strikes the soldier, sending him flying back and crashing into another soldier. He rushes forward in front of the man. 

 

He keeps an eye out for Kei as he hurries to heal the fallen man. His heart is hammering in his chest, but he doesn’t dare to let fear or doubt intrude his thoughts.  _ It’s me or them, _ he thinks wobbly.  The number of Desians in front of him in the town plaza overwhelms him and makes his arms ache; as he stares at the silver-haired healer walk in front of him, Tetsurou wonders where all of Koushi’s immense strength and courage comes from. The young teacher stands with his back straight, chin up, and jaw square.

 

“Stop,” Sugawara’s voice commands the attention of the fleet of soldiers and the villagers use the moment of distraction to get away from the soldiers, “why are you here tonight terrorizing Iselia? Unless there is a breach in our non-aggression treaty, there is no reason for your men to be here.”

 

“Oh, good sir, there are only very good reasons that we are here.” The man with the thick staff steps forward with a crude grin that makes their stomachs flip. He pulls out a thick piece of paper from his pockets.

 

“Kuroo Tetsurou! Come forth!”

 

As Tetsurou steps forward slowly, he finds himself locked up in a prison of heat. He sees everyone turn and stare at him as he stands straight in front of a pack of men who harvest human bodies, and the memory of him standing in front of a crowd of doubt and hate replays over and over in his mind. He sees the nausea crossing over Shouyou, as if he were ready to vomit everything he ever ate along with every word he has ever said, and he tries to not look at the pale, terror-stricken face of Kei’s.

 

He is to take the hate and blame for what he has caused.

 

“Listen up, human scum!” The man roars. “We are under orders of Forcystus, of the Five Desian Grand Cardinals, the superior half-elf who runs the farm where we cultivate pathetic humans such as yourselves!” He points towards the dark-haired teen, and Tetsurou tightens his grip on the hilt of his sword.

 

“Kuroo! You, a human, have been found guilt for the crime of violating the non-aggression treaty and for murdering one of our soldiers! Therefore, by the orders of Forcystus, we bring punishment upon you and this village!”

 

“No! He’s not responsible for any of this! He was only trying to do what was right and save me!” Hinata springs forward to Kuroo’s side, ears unhidden and in plain sight. His words are ignored as the man gestures his subordinates forward. “Koushi, you need to do something!”

 

For once, Iselia’s rock looks lost and terrified without the slightest idea of what to do.

 

“The only thing that matters is that you, Kuroo Tetsurou, have been in contact with host body F621 and murdered a guard. For this, we have prepared a proper opponent for your crime!” 

 

Shouyou screams, and Iselia becomes a home to chaos.

 

At that moment, Tetsurou sees the epitome of gore and grosteque. A horrendously revolting monster staggers forward from its cage, back crooked and slumped as it lurches forward on its two misshapen legs. Almost like the legends of river monsters he has listened to when he was a child, the monster’s skin is gross combination of sickly green and pale yellow, with its eyeless head squirming around. It drags its mutated arms along the ground, horns jabbing out of its skin with bulging veins, and Tetsurou shakily draws out his sword before the towering monster in front of him.

 

The monster is slow enough for Tetsurou to have time to sprint away, but every slam of its claws leaves a heavy impact on the ground that intimidates him. He feels awkward and clumsy with every pulse his exsphere gives him to charge forward, like a baby bird still not used to its wings. No amount of swinging wooden swords with his father and hunting could have ever prepared him for the nightmare in front of him.

 

The chaotic environment affects how well he can focus. He hears screaming from children, fathers, mothers who are all running away. He hears the grunt yells of  of a thick-statured figure he thinks is his father and sees him swinging a heavy axe that slams soldiers who are too close to the children hiding behind him. He feels the ground shake with every burst of light and ghosts Sugawara sends forward; despite his slender frame, he is a townsguard built into one body. The soldiers splits apart like a home of flies torn into two, and the silver-haired healer has his hands too full to help out the black-haired boy. He can’t see Shouyou or Kei within the heat and confusion.

 

He is on his own.

 

When the monster pauses, Tetsurou swings with all of his might, but the iron blade can only sink in so much before he pulls back and jumps back. His sword can only leave thin welts along the ribcage of the monster, and it isn’t enough when the only way out of this mess is to kill. The mutated monster screeches and drags its feet slowly towards him. He crosses his swords and gets ready to spring forward.

 

As Tetsurou deals with the monster, Kei scans the environment through the dust and smoke and can’t see anyone who resembles any one of his guardians. In a mix of hurry and panic, he has healed any injured villagers enough to the point they can run to the town shelter. He sees Koushi, Tetsurou’s father, and the townguard pushing back the Desians with all of their might. The groups of soldiers have begun to turn back, leaving only a few scraggles of soldiers in the plaza. 

 

As he reaches for his pouch, Tsukishima knows the full limits of his physique. He doesn’t have much muscle and his arms are awkward and weak whenever he has tried to use a sword and spar with Kuroo, but he has good aim. He pulls out a thin pair of iron chakrams his foster mother constantly chides him to remember to bring—for which he is no doubt grateful for—and whenever soldiers would slip past and near the makeshift shelter, he throws the ringlets with every fiber in him and they cut through, soldiers falling like leaves during autumn.

 

He may have a frail body, but Kei pulls his weight.

 

Off to the side, Tetsurou recognizes the neon red and purple fire that springs forward onto the green monster and feels a wave of relief. The moment of the monster squirming and waving away the flames gives him the chance to gain some distance away and catch his breath. The redhead half-elf joins his side, hand steady and the red glow of his spells ready.

 

“Are you okay?”

 

“Yeah, just pissed off about how difficult it is to land a hit on this monster.” The black-haired teen pants before placing his swords up.

 

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll hit it from the right and distract it so you can strike it from the left.” When the monster screeches and moves forward, Hinata mutters flames that shoot forward and engulf the monster’s right arm and strikes near the cracked crystal at the top of its head, and Kuroo cuts through the left arm. It writhes in pain; its voice scratchy and gurgly, oddly sounding similar to a human. The monster’s body is demonic, but the human voice it resembles is sweet like pistachio cake and homemade chocolate.

 

When Shouyou recognizes the voice, he freezes and forgets how to breath.

 

His muscles lock up, and his fingers still. The redhead sees the monster slowly moving towards him, but he doesn’t register Tetsurou’s yells or Kei running and shoving him away. He can’t stop staring at the cracked orange gem on the base of the head, and the heat equivalent to sun spirits burns into him like reopening a scab. His nerves, his sensory nerves feel lit on fire by a match, slowly dripping to numbness like melting wax off of a candle.  _ I can’t do it, _ his mind screams.  _ I can’t handle this at all. _

 

What he caused that day did not only leave trauma or a heavy burden on his best friends, and his actions did not only lead to Yui being whipped and punished. The irony and horror makes him want to sob and tear off the skin on his left arm that holds the black mark.

 

His actions caused Yui to become morphed into the monster he is supposed to kill.

 

The monster— _ no, Yui, _ the horror strikes like a sword running through him— raises its claw to crush the blonde Chosen below. There’s a blur of black, and everything happens so painfully slow as Kei is shoved away and Yui drags her mutated arm down. There’s a pair of iron twin swords in shambles on the ground, and the realization doesn’t hit him until he sees red mixed into Tetsurou’s black hair.

 

Shouyou swings his arm, a powerful blast of fire jetting through and striking Yui back. He doesn’t stop sending forward streams of fire until the monster is writhing, howling in pain and on the ground. 

 

The impact of her claw had torn Tetsurou’s flesh open, blood seeping through his clothes. His breathing is labored, from the way he sweats to keep on breathing and his chest rising and falling abnormally. Shouyou can’t see his right face from Kei’s green healing light, but he knows well enough that there isn’t suppose to be any red with the ebony mess of hair of Tetsurou’s head.

 

“Oh Goddess, he is barely breathing,” Kei panics, the green light growing stronger and more intense with every second despite the blonde’s clear exhaustion. His head whips around to the redhead guardian.

 

“Shouyou, you have to kill it.”

 

“I-I can’t!”

 

“Shouyou, we don’t have a choice, you are the only one who can!”

 

“But it’s Yui, Kei, I can’t kill her!” The half-elf stresses, yelling from the sheer grief and horror running through him. He sees his flames slowly dying off, and the green body squirming.

 

“Shouyou, listen to me,” Kei’s voice cracks but he doesn’t stop, “Yui is too far gone for us to ever be able to bring her back. She lost her sanity, and her body is eaten away by the exsphere. Do you think she would want you to keep her alive like this, hurting everyone in her path?!” Hinata’s heart hammers in his chest, pounding in his ears. Kei is right. This is the only way he can take responsibility for everything he has caused.

 

The flames have died off, and Yui slowly pushes her mutated body to her knees. Shouyou sprints forward; he doesn’t let his thoughts catch up to him as he pulls a dagger out from its sheath. He hates the irony—the irony of having to save a friend by killing another. He can’t afford anything less than perfect, but he’s full of mistakes he can’t afford and has no idea how to fix it without the dagger in his hand. 

 

She reaches out— _ she wanted to see this world a better place before she died,  _ his mind screams— and he sinks the dagger deep into the cracked exsphere and into the skull with the might of ten suns. She leaves the world the way she always was—a burst of light and warmth escaping from her body as she withers away— leaving behind the coolness of the ground and a sea of memories.

  
Hinata screams into his sleeve as he weeps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaand that's the end of the childhood parts that will be important later on in the story! next time they'll be older and going on the actual adventure, meeting some more people, development in sugawara and hinata's life, andddd you get to see how kuroo and tsukishima's relationship changes from being just friends......
> 
> hope you guys enjoyed the chapter! tell me what you guys think!

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me on tumblr at mellichor! i appreciate any support and you'll get snippets of the next chapter i've been cooking up!


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